UNWEBSlTyOFCALjFOBNIA^S^^^^^^^^^ 


3  1822  00273  6262 


REMEMBER  THEM 


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3  1822  00273  6262 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 

LA  JOLLA.  CALIFORNIA 


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'^A'^c-^^^^^ 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM 


By  C.  C.  GOODWIN 

Author  of  The  Comstock  Club,  The  Wedge  of  Gold,  etc. 
Formerly  Editor  of  the  Virginia  City,  Nev.,  Enterprise 


PUBLISHED  BY  A  SPECIAL  COMMITTEE  OF  THE 
SALT    LAKE    COMMERCIAL    CLUB 

C,   N.   STREVELL,  Chairman 
M.   H.  WALKER,  Treasurer 
JOSEPH   E.   CAINE,  Secretary 
W. W.    ARMSTRONG 
H.    L.    A.    CULMER 


SALT   LAKE    CITY,   UTAH 
191 3 


Copyright.    3  913.    by   C.    C.   Goodwin. 


PREFACE. 

Within  these  pages  are  some  pen  sketches  of  men. 

Some  in  their  hves,  to  hhnded  eyes,  were  just  plain  people, 
who  did  their  work  here  noiselessly  and  fell  asleep. 

Some  were  men  wdiose  learning  ranged  over  every  field, 
whose  brows  had  been  sealed  by  the  signet  of  genius,  whose 
lips  and  pens  were  tipped  by  celestial  fire. 

Some  were  heroes  who  held  their  fortunes,  their  sacred 
honor,  life  itself  as  nothing  when  a  principle  was  to  be  \-indi- 
cated. 

Some  were  masterful  souls,  industrial  kings,  state  and  em- 
pire builders  wdio  went  out  exultingly  to  the  conquest  of  the 
wilderness,  to  storm  its  mountains  for  their  treasures,  to  drive 
back  the  frontier,  to  chase  away  the  frown  of  the  desert,  to 
blaze  and  smooth  the  trails,  that  full  enbghtenment — or  un- 
soiled  sandals  might  come. 

Some  were  absorbed  in  drying  the  tears  from  the  cheeks 
of  sorrow  a;id  in  proclaiming  the  goodness  of  God. 

These  come  back  to  me  as  I  recall  them  to  make  me  forget 
the  roll  and  roar  of  the  onsweeping  world.  They  have  come 
across  the  gulf  of  the  years,  come  with  the  old  exulted  step 
and  old  sparkle  in  their  eyes  and  have  hailed  me  with  the  old 
joyous  voices,  from  which  not  one  cadence  is  lost.  Those 
voices  are  sweeter  than  harp  or  flute.  I  cannot  catch  and  hold 
the  voices  or  the  music,  but  from  time  to  time  I  have  made 
rude  sketches  of  the  stately  souls.  To  make  clear  how  I  have 
been  favored,  with  all  good  will    these  sketches  are  presented. 

Charles  Carroll  Goodwin. 


CONTENTS. 


General  John  A.  Sutter 
General  John  Bidwell 
Senator  David  C.  Broderick 
Judge  Joseph  Baldwin 
Leland  Stanford 
The  Old  Time  Miners 
Theodore  D.  Judah     . 
Charlie  Fairfax 
The  Gentleman  from  Pike 
Colonel  E.  D.  Baker 
Darius  Ogden  Mills 
Ed.  C.  Marshall 
CoLLis  P.  Huntington 
Judge  Charles  H.  Bryan 
The  Old  San  Francisco 
The  Sacramento  Union 
Newton  Booth 
J.  E.  "Lucky"  Baldwin 

"Jim"  Gillis 
William  Lent 
Tod  Robinson 

W.  C.  Ralston 

George  C.  Gorham 

Thomas  Starr  King 

The  Old  Boys     . 

William  Sharon 

Col.  David  T.  Buel 

William  H.  Clagget 

William  M.  Stewart 

"Red"  Frank  Wheeler 

James  W^   Nye 

John  W.  Mackay 

Clarence  King 

Judge  B.  C.  Whitman 

James  G.  Fair     . 

RoLLiN  M.  Daggett     . 

Professor  Frank  Stewart 

Governor  Luther  R.  Bradley 

Alvinza  Hayward 

Harry  L  Thornton 


PAGE 

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192 
197 
202 
207 


6  CONTENTS 

"Dan  De  Quille" 

Colonel  Robert  H.  Taylor 

The  Old  Stage  Drivers 

Judge  Alexander  Baldwin 

Professor  Joshua  Clayton 

Adolph  Sutro 

Harry  Mighels 

Samuel  L.  Clemens — "Mark  Twain' 

Judge  R.  S.  Mesick 

General  P.  E.  Connor 

Marcus  Daly 

John  Atchison 

Judge  J.  B.  Roseborough 

John  Percival  Jones 

Allen  Green  Campbell 

A.    C.   Cleveland 

"Joggles"  Wright 

Moses  Kirkpatrick 

"Zinc"  Barnes 

General  Thaddeus  H.  Stanton 

Colonel  William  Montague  Ferry 

Colonel  Wilbur  F.  Sanders 

John  Q.  Packard 

Colonel  A.  C.  Ellis 

Richard  Mackintosh 

William  S.  Godbe 

General  Alexander  McDowell  McCook 

E.   H.   Harriman 

Hon.  O.  J.  Salisbury 

Hon.  George  W.  Cassidy 

Colonel  George  L.  Shoup 

Harvey  W.  Scott 

Senator  Ed.   Wolcott 

Joaquin  Miller 

The  Old  Column 


PAGE 

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356 
357 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


GENERAL  JOHN  A.  SUTTER. 

WHEN  I  saw  him  last  he  was  on  his  "Hock  Farm" 
on  Feather  River,  about  forty  miles  north  of  Sac- 
ramento. He  had  built  a  house  there  and  cultivated 
a  portion  of  his  farm.  The  house  was  of  adobe,  the  walls  were, 
I  think,  three  feet  thick,  as  he  explained  that  the  house  might 
keep  out  the  heat  in  summer  and  the  cold  in  winter.  He  must 
have  been  at  that  time  something  over  fifty  years  of  age,  prob- 
ably fifty-three.  He  was  not  tall,  but  heavy,  weighing  perhaps 
200  pounds.  His  face  was  very  strong  but  gentle  as  a  woman's, 
his  voice  was  soft  and  lov^.  He  impressed  me  as  one  who 
had  finished  his  work,  as  one  who,  when  his  bark  had  been 
sailing  smoothly,  was  caught  by  a  tidal  wave  and  tossed  ashore, 
l)ruised  and  half  shattered. 

Save  the  resolute  face  there  was  no  sign  of  the  tireless 
energy  and  dauntless  endurance  and  courage  that  had  trans- 
ferred him  from  a  little  hamlet  in  Germany  to  the  golden  coast 
l)efore  it  was  known  that  any  gold  was  there,  and  had  caused 
him  to  beat  back  both  the  barbarian  and  the  savage,  plant  a 
home  there  and  begin  the  transformation  of  the  land. 

He  gave  us  gentle  but  cordial  welcome,  ofi^ered  us  all  the 
hospitalities  of  his  home,  and  the  tender  was  that  of  the  front- 
iersman, which,  without  words,  seemed  to  be  saying ;  "Every- 
thing is  yours;  why  wait  for  formalities?  You  are  welcome 
guests  and  that  makes  you  masters  while  you  stay." 

But  under  that  gentle  exterior  the  soul  of  a  hero  had  its 
tenement.  We  knew  that  before  we  saw  him  first,  and  for  the 
moment  his  appearance  was  a  little  disappointing,  and  I  said  to 
my  brother,  who  was  with  me :  "He  impresses  me  with  a  feel- 
ing that  his  high  soul  is  taking  its  afternoon  siesta."  For  I 
knew  that  the  (|uiet  man  had  braved  every  danger,  coming  in 
a  frail  craft  over  all  the  mighty  stretch  of  storms  and  waves; 


8  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

that  he  with  a  Httle  band  of  followers,  planted  the  first  pioneer 
outpost,  built  a  rude  fort  for  a  defense  against  the  wild  beast 
and  savage  man ;  that  there,  the  pioneer  of  pioneers,  he  laid  the 
foundation  of  what  he  fondly  hoped  would  become  a  glorified 
state;  with  dauntless  courage  when  necessary,  maintained  his 
place,  and  then,  with  his  gentleness  and  justice,  drew  to  him 
those  who  had  been  enemies,  and  showed  them  how  much 
smoother  were  the  paths  of  peace  and  progress  than  the  stony 
trails  of  violence  and  cruelty. 

He  honestly  acquired  great  grants  of  land,  enough  for  an 
earldom;  he  built  a  rude  little  mill  and  in  the  race  from  that 
mill  the  first  golden  sands  of  California  were  washed.  He  was 
then  forty-eight  years  old,  and  his  shadow  was  turning  to  the 
east.  He  was  yet  hale  and  strong,  but  his  energies  had  never 
been  called  into  a  direct  competition  with  the  sharp  men  who, 
a  little  later,  came  in  a  flood,  began  to  work  upon  his  generosity 
and  whatever  of  cupidity  he  had.  His  estate  began  to  shrink  and 
before  he  realized  it,  he  was  poor.  Whatever  his  thoughts 
were  they  did  not  disturb  his  stately  serenity;  he  was  a  trained 
soldier ;  indififerent  to  danger  and  hardships,  and  had  been  all 
his  life,  and  no  false  friends  could  rob  him  of  his  self-respect  or 
lofty  dignity. 

He  knew  from  the  first  that  the  house  he  had  built  was 
the  first  temple  to  civilization  that  had  been  upreared  in  that 
fair  land;  that  in  the  chronology  of  California  all  time  would 
date  from  him  and  his  work.  He  had  come  there  as  the 
Patriarch  of  the  region ;  the  advance  agent  of  civilization,  and 
enlightenment;  that  every  step  that  progress  would  hereafter 
make,  every  triumph  that  history  might  record  for  the  golden 
state,  the  refrain  of  every  speech,  the  word  picture  of  every 
glorious  advance,  would  still  be  incomplete  unless  it  included 
the  explanation  that  it  had  all  dated  from  the  work  of  the 
stalwart  old  pioneer  who  first  planted  the  flag  of  freedom  on 
California  soil;  built  the  first  real  home,  the  first  rude  temple 
to  justice,  and  whose  heroic  soul  was  the  guardian  of  all.  until 
other  brave  souls  came  to  hail  him  as  the  Pioneer  of  Pioneers, 
and  to  help  pick  up  and  carry  on  the  work  needed  to  round  a 
pflorious  state  into  form. 


GENERAL  JOHN  BID  WELL. 

ON  the  scroll  which  holds  the  names  of  the  west-coast 
Pioneers,  the  name  of  John  Bidwell  should  be  close  to 
the  top  of  the  stalwart  list.  In  many  respects  his  career 
was  most  wonderful. 

When  a  boy  he  traveled  three  hundred  miles  on  -foot 
through  the  wilderness  of  Ohio  and  Indiana  to  obtain  some 
rudiments  of  an  education  at  a  little  old  primitive  academy. 
When  nineteen  years  of  age,  he  drifted  down  the  Ohio  from 
Cincinnati  to  the  Mississippi,  up  the  Mississippi  to  the  Mis- 
souri, up  the  Missouri  to  Platte  county,  where  he  settled  down 
and  taught  school  for  two  winters. 

The  call  of  the  wild  had  always  been  in  his  ears.  He 
one  day  met  a  man  who  had  been  to  the  west  coast,  who  told 
Bidwell  of  the  wonders  beyond  the  plains  and  the  mountains. 
The  result  was  that  a  little  company  was  fitted  out  and  started 
west.  This  was  in  1841.  Bidwell  had  a  yoke  of  oxen,  a  flint- 
lock musket,  a  pair  of  old-time  pistols  and  a  little  food. 

The  company  had  no  map  or  chart ;  knew  nothing  of  the 
route  they  were  to  travel  except  to  go  west.  They  wandered 
on,  reached  the  Rockies,  worked  their  way  to  about  where 
Granger  in  Wyoming  is,  pushed  through  the  pass  to  Soda 
Springs;  then  continued  west  and  south  to  the  north  end  of 
Great  Salt  Lake,  then  zigzagged  into  the  Humboldt  valley; 
followed  it  to  the  sink,  then  bore  across  to  the  Carson  river, 
and  found  their  way  through  the  hills  to  Walker  river,  then 
scaled  the  almost  impassable  heights  which  surround  the 
source  of  the  Walker.  They  had  become  divided  and  in 
searching  one  morning  for  his  last  ox,  Bidwell  came  upon 
the  big  trees,  the  first  white  man  to  ever  see  them,  and  stum- 
bled his  way  down  the  Stanislaus  river  to  the  San  Joaquin. 

Of  all  the  feats  of  all  the  pioneers  this  was  the  very 
greatest.  There  is  nothing  like  it  told  in  history.  It  could 
have  been  only  through  the  mercy  of  God  that  it  was  accom- 
plished. 


10  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

It  was  enough  to  break  the  heart  of  any  man  thrust  out  on 
that  awful  waste;  no  trail  to  follow;  animals  growing  weaker 
and  weaker  as  the  difficulties  of  the  journey  increased;  the 
grass  giving  way  at  last  and  nought  in  view  save  the  desert, 
and  finally  the  scaling  of  the  Sierras,  at  a  point  which  men 
have  ever  since  evaded,  so  terrible  is  it,  that  how  that  little 
company  survived  it  without  growing  daft,  is  a  marvel  that 
grows  in  magnitude  the  more  it  is  studied.  The  horror  of  the 
dav.  the  terrible  silence  of  the  night,  the  awful  fatigue,  the 
impossibility  of  return,  the  hopelessness  of  trying  to  advance; 
all  make  of  the  journey  one  of  the  most  striking  achievements 
of  the  ages. 

Bidwell  found  General  Sutter,  who  had  reached  Cali- 
fornia two  years  in  advance  of  him.  He  was  Sutter's  lieu- 
tenant for  two  years,  and  especially  had  charge  of  the  Hock 
farm.  When  Fremont  came,  in  1843,  he  was  Fremont's  guide, 
told  him  of  the  big  trees  and  of  Salt  Lake,  and  when  the 
order  came  to  Fremont  that,  in  the  event  of  war,  he  was  to  try 
to  take  and  hold  California,  Bidwell  became  a  soldier.  After 
the  war,  Bidwell  found  what  is  now  Bidwell's  Bar,  on  Feather 
River.  He  made  a  fortune  and  then  purchased  Rancho  Chico, 
twenty-two  thousand  acres  of  the  richest  body  of  land  in  the 
Sacramento  valley. 

He  carried  east  the  block  of  gold  quartz  that  was  Cali- 
fornia's contribution  to  the  W'ashington  monument :  set  the 
machinery  in  motion  that  drew  William  H.  Seward  in  the 
senate  to  advocate  the  admission  of  California,  and.  returning, 
began  not  only  the  cultivation  of  his  farm,  but  established  a 
primitive  experiment  station  and  had  at  one  time  on  this  land 
four  hundred  food  and  flower  varieties  growing.  This  he 
pursued  all  his  life.  He  gave  me,  in  August.  1889,  on  his 
table  on  the  Chico  Rancho,  a  watermelon  of  his  own  "breed- 
ing" Avhich  was  as  yellow  as  a  muskmelon,  and  sweeter  than 
a  concert  of  nightingales. 

He  was  sent  to  Congress,  and  there  all  his  work  was  for 
progress.  In  1892  he  was  nominated  by  the  Prohibitionists 
in  National  convention  at  Cincinnati  for  President,  and 
received  the  highest  vote  ever  given  a  prohibition  candidate. 


GENERAL  JOHN  BIDWELL.  11 

In  the  stirring  years  from  1860  to  1865  his  was  one  of  the 
loudest  voices  in  California  for  the  Union.  His  work  was 
incessant  during  the  sixty  years  he  Hved  in  CaHfornia.  He 
buih  seventy-five  miles  of  the  road  over  the  Sierras  from 
Chico  toward  Susanville;  put  on  a  stage  line  to  run  between 
Chico  and  Boise  City,  and  stocked  the  whole  line  with  his 
own  horses. 

When  eighty  years  of  age  he  went  with  an  employee  to 
the  woods  to  select  some  timbers  for  a  special  use.  He  cut 
off  a  log  that  was  in  the  way  and  was  seized  with  heart  failure. 
He  was  carried  home,  and  on  the  same  afternoon  sank  into 
a  slumber  which  deepened  into  his  last  sleep  an  hour  later. 

When  I  last  saw  him  he  was  sixty-nine  years  of  age,  but 
he  was  as  erect  as  a  man  of  twenty.  He  was  six  feet  high, 
and  a  stalwart — a  most  impressive  personage;  a  stalwart,  but 
genial  and  generous.  He  had  then  toiled  all  his  life,  had 
suffered  hardships  almost  unendurable,  but  had  triumphed 
over  all  and  had  made  for  himself  a  high  name,  simply  through 
his  toil  and  his  force  of  character,  his  high  motives  and  his 
irrepressible  energy. 

He  was  a  Pioneer  of  Pioneers,  a  patriot,  a  statesman,  a 
soldier,  and  lived  a  long  life  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 


SENATOR  DAVID  C.  BRODERICK. 

I  HESITATE  about  giving  my  impressions  of  Senator 
Broderick,  for  fear  that  I  cannot  join  him  with  the  age 
he  hved  in  and  picture  the  memory  of  him  as  it  ought 
to  be  seen  by  men  Hving  now. 

He  Hved  a  laborious  Hfe  all  through  his  boyhood  and 
early  youth  and  a  life  mostly  devoid  of  the  help  of  schools. 
He  became  a  fire  chief  in  New  York  City  as  naturally  as  the 
foremost  savage  of  his  tribe  ever  gravitated  to  the  chieftain- 
ship. The  fire  department  of  New  York  City  in  his  days  had 
some  very  sturdy  men  as  members,  whom  no  one  could  con- 
trol who  was  not  as  resolute  as  the  best  of  them  and  a  natural 
master  of  men. 

But  none  disputed  Broderick's  perfect  fitness  for  the 
place,  and  he  held  it  until  he  was  ready  to  sail  for  California. 
That  he  had  been  nursing  higher  hopes  was  plain  from  a 
remark  he  made  on  the  eve  of  sailing.  "When  will  you  come 
back,  chief?"  asked  one  of  his  fire  company.  "When  I  am 
elected  United  States  senator  from  California,"  was  his  reply. 
After  looking  around  a  few  days  in  California  he  decided 
that  a  man  would  be  helpless  there  without  money.  And  he 
wanted  to  begin  his  work  quickly.  He  never  drank,  but  he 
opened  a  saloon.  At  the  same  time  he  began  dealing  in  real 
estate,  and  made  a  little  fortune  in  two  years.  Meanwhile  he 
had  become  acquainted  with  all  the  leading  men' of  San  Fran- 
cisco and  many  in  the  state  outside.  In  that  time  and  all  the 
rest  of  his  life  he  devoted  all  his  leisure  to  study.  After  his 
work  closed  for  the  day  he  devoted  half  his  nights  to  the  study 
of  the  sciences,  he  devoured  all  the  English  classics,  and  they 
were  not  merely  skimmed  over,  but  studied  line  by  line  until 
it  became  a  habit  with  him  to  analyze  all  he  read. 

He  began  to  mix  in  politics  and  began  to  lead.  He  was 
a  massive  commanding  man,  but  his  voice  was  gentle,  save 
when  aroused ;  and  there  was  a  special  magnetism  about  him. 
It  was  said  of  him,  "Do  not  let  Broderick  shake  your  hand. 


SENATOR  DAVID  C.  BRODERICK.  13 

look  in  your  eyes  and  talk  to  you  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
or  he  will  hoodoo  you,  and  you  will  be  his  slave  for  life." 

Perhaps  his  ruling  trait  was  his  absolute  sincerity.  A 
statement  of  fact  by  him  was  never  doubted,  a  promise  from 
him  was  to  be  counted  upon  implicitly  for  all  time.  His  influ- 
ence rapidly  widened;  he  began  to  be  a  distinct  factor  in  the 
politics  of  California.  But  he  was  not  nearly  perfect.  He 
could  rule  men,  but  he  had  never  learned  to  quite  rule  him- 
self. From  the  first  he  had  devoted  friends  and  a  good  many 
enemies,  and  if  he  heard  that  some  one  had  denounced  or 
betrayed  him,  he  had  not  the  philosophy  to  pass  it  by  as  a 
mere  incident,  but  at  once  became  furious  in  his  anathemas. 
And  vet  he  was  always  generous  and  ready  to  fix  up  a  dif- 
ference and  was  often  imposed  upon  by  a  feigned  apology. 

He  steadily  grew  in  power  and  began  to  make  public 
addresses.  He  was  never  a  winsome  public  speaker.  He 
simply  talked  cold  facts  in  a  way  to  convince  men.  He  could 
excoriate  an  opponent,  but  his  words  were  wielded  as  a 
cleaver  is  wielded ;  and  to  hear  him  after  a  man  like  Col.  Baker 
or  Ned  Marshall  or  McDougal  or  any  of  plenty  more  who 
talked  in  those  days,  was  a  disappointment.  His  success  lay  in 
personal  contact  with  men,  in  his  words,  his  voice  and  smile 
and  the  magnetism  of  his  mere  presence. 

When  at  last  the  Democratic  party  was  rent  asunder  in 
the  state,  and  Broderick  was  elected  United  States  senator  by 
the  Free  Soil  wing  of  the  party,  then  he  became  in  a  sense 
a  marked  man.  So  strong  was  he  that  he  was  not  only  elected, 
but  he  dictated  who  else  should  be  elected,  and  the  man  who 
was  elected  pledged  Broderick  that  he  should  dictate  the  pa- 
tronaofe  in  California.  But  when  the  two  senators  reached 
Washington,  his  colleague  forgot  some  of  his  promises,  and 
the  men  who  controlled  the  President  and  the  Senate  at  that 
time  had  no  use  for  a  Senator  whom  they  declared  had  deserted 
and  divided  the  Democratic  party  in  the  Golden  State.  Of 
course  Broderick  was  savage  in  his  denunciation  of  all  this 
and  of  the  men  who  had  betrayed  him  and  the  real  Democracy 
in  California.  The  shadow  of  the  coming  war  was  growing- 
darker  and  darker  in  the  east,  and  it  was  easy  to  see  what  a 


14  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

power  Broderick  would  be  should  a  crisis  be  precipitated. 
The  man  whom  Broderick  had  especially  antagonized  was 
Senator  Gwin  who  had  been  a  senator  from  the  birth  of  the 
state ;  who  was  a  superior  man  and  one  whom  all  the  southern 
states  indorsed  and  stood  by. 

But  he  was  an  old  man,  and  his  friends  would  not  permit 
him  to  challenge  Broderick ;  they  were  afraid  of  results.  But 
Judge  David  S.  Terry,  who  had  been  a  warm  friend  of  Brod- 
erick's,  went  off  wnth  the  "Chivalry"  wing  when  the  party 
divided,  and  one  night  made  a  speech  in  Sacramento  in  which 
he  animadverted  severely  on  the  course  of  Senator  Broderick. 
Next  morning,  while  at  breakfast  in  the  public  dining  room 
of  a  San  Francisco  hotel,  Broderick  came  upon  a  copy  of  the 
speech,  read  it,  and  in  his  impetuous  way  said  he  had  thought 
that  there  was  one  honest  man  on  the  supreme  bench  of  the 
state,  but  he  would  have  to  give  it  up. 

It  was  a  mere  momentary  ebullition  of  impatience,  and 
nothing  would  ever  have  come  of  it  had  not  a  lawyer  named 
Purley  been  at  the  same  table  and,  overhearing  the  remark, 
hotly  declared  that  Judge  Terry  was  a  special  friend  of  his  and 
he  would  not  permit  any  such  remark  to  be  made  about  Judge 
Terry  in  his  hearing. 

But  Broderick  would  not  quarrel  with  him,  intimating  his 
belief  that  Judge  Terry  hardly  needed  a  champion  of  Purley's 
caliber. 

The  incident,  with  elaborations,  was  reported  to  Terry, 
who  promptly  resigned  his  judgeship  and  sent  a  challenge  to 
Broderick. 

The  late  summer  political  campaign  was  at  its  height. 
Broderick  was  out  on  the  stump  and  had  promised  to  visit 
many  towns.  When  the  challenge  reached  him  he  merely 
replied  that  until  his  engagements  were  filled,  he  would  not 
consider  any  matter  of  that  kind.  So  soon,  however,  as  the 
campaign  was  over,  he  accepted  the  challenge.  There  was 
much  insistence  at  the  time  that  unfair  advantage  was  taken 
of  Broderick's  unfamiliarity  with  dueling :  the  right  statement 
would  have  been  that  every  proper  advantage  was  taken  b}- 
Terry  and  his  friends.     When  on  the  field  McKibben  merely 


SENATOR  DAVID  C.  BRODERICK.  15 

touched  Terry's  breast  as  Broderick's  second,  while  Calhoun 
Benham,  Terry's  second,  roughly  went  over  Broderick's  cloth- 
ing as  though  suspicious  that  he  had  on  a  suit  of  armor.  Then 
the  pistols  used  were  hair-trigger  pistols,  something  Broderick 
was  altogether  unfamiliar  with,  so  when  the  word  was  given 
Broderick  had  hardly  begun  to  raise  his  weapon  when  it  went 
off,  the  bullet  striking  the  ground  only  a  few  feet  from  his 
hand.  Then  Terry  took  careful  aim  and  fired.  The  bullet 
struck  Broderick  in  the  right  breast,  wounded  the  right  lung, 
passed  under  the  sternum,  then  followed  the  ribs  over  the 
heart  and  went  out  under  the  left  arm. 

True  to  the  savage  in  his  nature,  Terry  exclaimed,  'T  shot 
an  inch  too  far  to  the  right."  Broderick  stood  for  an  instant, 
then  turned  half  round  and  sank  to  the  ground.  He  lived 
sixty-two  hours.  No  death  in  California  had  ever  produced 
half  the  sorrow  and  anger  that  his  did.  His  friends  declared 
that  while  it  was  compassed  according  to  the  barbarous  forms 
of  the  code,  nevertheless,  it  was  a  premeditated  murder;  that 
there  had  been  no  more  provocation  in  Broderick's  words  than 
there  had  been  in  Terry's  speech ;  that  the  speech  was  made 
merely  to  provoke  Broderick  to  say  something  in  cjuick  indig- 
nation which  would  supply  a  lame  excuse  on  which  to  challenge 
him,  and  that  Terry,  who  really  had  no  cause  of  c[uarrel  with 
Broderick,  was  selected,  because  he  was  a  practiced  duelist, 
and  when  aroused  had  no  more  sensibilities  than  a  grizzly. 

The  shot  that  killed  Broderick  was  in  truth  the  first  shot 
of  the  great  war.  After  that  the  line  of  demarcation  between 
northern  and  southern  men  was  more  closely  drawn;  northern 
men  grew  more  and  more  aggressive;  it  increased  further  the 
division  made  when  Penn  Johnson  killed  the  quiet,  gentle,  gen- 
erous and  blameless  Furgeson,  in  another  duel  a  few  months 
previous.  When  Broderick  was  killed.  Col.  E,  D.  Baker  pro- 
nounced the  eulogy  at  his  funeral,  and  Rome  was  not  half  so 
stirred  by  Antony's  speech  over  C?esar  as  were  the  men  who 
listened  that  day  to  Col.  Baker. 

As  he  arose  and  stretched  out  his  arms  over  the  casket 
in  which  Broderick's  body  lay,  his  opening  words  were;  "Men 


16  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

of  California,  behold  your  senator."  In  an  instant  half  that 
immense  assembly  were  sobbing  like  grieved  children. 

Then  he  pictured  the  great  soul  that  had  fled,  its  perfect 
truthfulness,  its  devotion  to  duty,  its  courage,  its  scorn  of  all 
that  was  base,  untrue  and  unclean ;  its  perfect  ideal  of  Ameri- 
can manhood  and  citizenship;  its  generosity  and  power;  how 
without  any  early  advantages  he  had  fought  and  won  for  him- 
self a  place  among  the  highest  and  so  bore  himself  that  they 
were  glad  to  hail  him  as  their  peer,  and  how  at  last  he  had 
fallen  a  martyr  to  those  who  were  gathering  to  perpetuate  the 
slave  power  under  our  holy  flag.  The  effect  was  indescribable, 
and  when,  in  closing,  he  said :  "But  the  last  word  must  be 
spoken;  the  imperious  mandate  of  Death  must  be  fulfilled. 
Thus,  O  brave  heart,  we  bear  thee  to  thy  rest.  Thus,  sur- 
rounded by  tens  of  thousands,  we  bear  thee  to  the  equal  grave. 
As  in  life  no  other  voice  among  us  so  rang  in  trumpet  blasts 
upon  the  ears  of  freemen,  so  in  death  its  echoes  will  reverberate 
amid  our  mountains  and  valleys  until  truth  and  valor  cease  to 
appeal  to  the  human  heart.  Good  friend !  true  hero !  hail  and 
farewell!"  The  response  was  the  sobbing  of  thousands  of 
strong  men. 

Broderick's  death  was  well  described  by  Judge  Dwindle, 
a  few  words  of  which  we  recall : 

"When  one  goes  forth  like  Broderick  in  the  maturity  of 
his  manhood;  in  the  fulness  of  his  powers,  in  the  ripeness  of 
his  intellect;  in  the  perfection  of  his  moral  discipline,  hoping 
so  much  himself,  and  of  whom  so  much  was  hoped — when 
such  an  one  lies  down  forever  upon  his  bloody  couch,  we  are  as 
unreconciled  as  the  husband  over  the  grave  of  his  first  love ;  as 
inconsolable  as  the  mother  over  the  corpse  of  her  first-born." 

Men's  eyes  were  blinded  then.  Fate  was  setting  the  stage 
for  the  great  tragedy,  the  mighty  acts  of  which  were  so  soon 
to  be  called ;  there  was  no  music  and  all  the  lights  were  turned 
low. 


JUDGE  JOSEPH  BALDWIN. 

FROM  the  earliest  days  Judge  Baldwin  was  one  of  the 
ablest  law3-ers  in  California,  one  of  the  ablest  of  that 
grand  array  of  lawyers  on  the  Comstock.  Then  he  had 
distinct  attributes  of  his  own.  He  had  a  sense  of  humor  that 
was  contagious  and  enchanting.  His  "Flush  Times  in  Ala- 
bama" had  fun  enough  on  every  page  to  build  a  comic  opera 
up  around.  It  is  still  a  standard  work  among  the  old  race  of 
men  who  recall  how  things  were  before  great  wealth  came  to 
the  country  and  when  men  lived  on  a  lower,  gentler  plane,  and 
with  no  fame  as  the  owners  of  vast  wealth,  had  hearts  too  big 
for  narrow  human  breasts.  But  there  was  no  bitterness  in  his 
soul,  no  malice,  and  deep  down  he  had  mastered  all  life's  prob- 
lems with  no  worse  result  than  to  share  the  sorrows  of  his  fel- 
low men  and  to  shield,  so  far  as  he  could,  their  frailties. 

He  was  intensely  southern ;  he  believed  in  his  state  and 
section  with  all  the  fervor  of  his  genial  and  generous  nature, 
but  he  was  intellectually  honest  and  his  perceptions  acute,  and 
with  a  quick  intuition  he  measured  the  worth  of  men,  and  in 
judging  them  forgot  where  either  he  or  they  were  born,  and 
estimated  only  what  they  were  when  he  met  them. 

When  he  went  to  the  supreme  bench  of  California,  there 
were  men  who,  because  they  did  not  understand  his  nature,  had 
a  fear  that  he  did  not  appreciate  the  weight  of  the  duties  he 
was  undertaking. 

Of  the  problems  which  confronted  the  supreme  court  of 
California  at  the  time,  we  can  best  get  an  idea  from  Judge 
Baldwin's  own  words.     He  said  : 

"California  was  then,  as  now,  in  the  development  of  her 
multiform  physical  resources.  The  judges  were  as  much  pio- 
neers of  law  as  the  people  of  settlement.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
even  in  the  experience  of  new  countries  hastily  settled  by  hetero- 
geneous crowds  of  strangers  from  all  countries,  no  such  exam- 
ple of  legal  and  judicial  difficulties  was  ever  before  presented 
as  has  been  illustrated  in  the  history  of  California.     There 


18  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

was  no  general  or  common  course  of  jurisprudence.  Law- 
was  to  be  administered  almost  without  a  standard.  There  was 
the  civil  law,  as  adulterated  or  modified  by  Mexican  provincial- 
ism, usages  and  habitudes,  for  a  great  part  of  the  legislation ; 
there  was  the  common  law  for  another  part,  but  what  that  was, 
was  to  be  decided  from  the  conflicting  divisions  of  any  number 
of  courts  in  America  and  England,  and  the  various  and  diverse 
considerations  of  policy  arising  from  local  and  other  facts. 

"And  then  contracts  made  elsewhere  and  some  of  them  in 
semi-civilized  countries  had  to  be  interpreted  here. 

"Besides,  to  all  which  may  be  added  that  large  and  im- 
portant interests  peculiar  to  the  state  existed — mines,  ditches, 
etc. — for  which  the  courts  were  compelled  to  frame  the  law  and 
make  a  system  out  of  what  was  little  better  than  chaos. 

"When,  in  addition,  it  is  considered  that  an  unprecedented 
number  of  contracts,  and  an  amount  of  business  without  paral- 
lel, had  been  made  and  done  in  hot  haste,  with  the  utmost  care- 
lessness; that  legislation  was  accomplished  in  the  same  way, 
and  presented  the  crudest  and  most  incongruous  materials  for 
construction;  that  the  whole  scheme  and  organization  of  the 
government  and  the  relation  of  the  government  and  the  rela- 
tion of  the  departments  to  each  other,  had  to  be  adjusted  by 
judicial  construction — it  may  well  be  conceived  what  task  even 
the  ablest  jurist  would  take  upon  himself  when  he  assumed 
office  on  the  supreme  bench." 

He  wrote  the  above  when  he  had  long  filled  that  office,  in 
which  he  grew  in  intellectual  stature  every  day. 

The  two  crowning  glories  of  his  life  were  first  his  stain- 
less integrity,  then  his  tireless  industry. 

As  a  sample,  there  was  one  case  in  which  a  title  had  come 
down  from  a  long  before  Mexican  concession.  A  vast  sum 
hung  upon  the  decision  of  the  case,  and  the  records  were  so 
conflicting  and  incongruous  that  an  hour's  study  of  them  was 
enough  to  make  a  lawyer  crazy. 

At  the  time.  Judge  Baldwin  knew  at  best  but  a  few  words 
of  Spanish. 

He  pondered  over  the  case  a  good  while.     The  longer  he 


JUDGE  JOSEPH  BALDWIN.  19 

considered  it,  the  more  he  thought  of  what  a  wrong  an  incor- 
rect decision  would  be,  and  finally  his  mind  was  made  up. 

He  set  out  for  the  City  of  Mexico  with  two  purposes  in 
his  mind :  one  was  to  learn  to  read  Spanish,  the  other  to  go 
to  the  depths  of  the  case  and  trace  the  titles  up  to  a  conclusion 
in  which  there  could  be  no  flaw. 

He  accomplished  both  purposes,  and  Justice  Stephen  J. 
Field,  referring  to  it  later,  declared  that  "the  opinion  of  Justice 
Baldwin  in  the  case  was  without  precedent  for  the  exhaustive 
learning  and  research  it  exhibits  upon  the  points  discussed." 

It  made  clear  as  nothing  else  ever  did,  that  the  jolly  side 
of  Justice  Baldwin's  nature  was  but  a  by-product,  that  down 
deep  his  inner  self  was  profound  and  as  honest  as  profound, 
and  that  over  all  no  higher  soul  ever  controlled  a  man's  life. 
He  was,  indeed,  the  very  highest  type  of  man ;  whatever  his 
sorrows  were,  he  vexed  no  one  with  them ;  when  popular  fury 
was  aroused  in  the  opening  days  of  the  great  war,  it  was  the 
cutting  off  for  him  of  honors  which  any  man  might  covet,  espe- 
cially if,  as  with  him,  he  had  earned  them;  but  there  was  from 
him  no  repining,  no  change  in  the  serenity  of  his  nature ; 
indeed,  he  did  not  forget  his  natural  wit  even  when  he  was 
the  victim  of  it. 

His  private  life  was  perfect;  his  public  life  was  stainless; 
he  grew  in  men's  estimation  to  the  last. 

The  brightest  of  "the  native  sons  of  the  Golden  State" 
should  be  delegated  to  make  a  study  of  Judge  Baldwin's  life, 
and  deliver  a  eulogy  upon  it. 

If  this  should  be  done,  they  would  realize  as  never  before 
that  "there  were  giants  in  those  days." 

But  that,  though  prepared  with  all  fidelity,  would  fail  to 
make  a  picture  of  him  to  compare  with  the  picture  that  is  en- 
graven on  the  walls  of  the  heart  of  any  old  argonaut  who 
knew  him,  who  heard  his  voice,  who  looked  in  his  kindly  eyes, 
and  realized  how  high  and  true  was  the  man  every  day  of  his 
life;  in  truth,  above  fear  and  above  reproach,  and  a  very  bless- 
ing to  all  who  had  the  honor  of  knowing  him  in  the  power  and 
the  splendor  of  his  life. 


LELAND  STANFORD. 

A  STRONG  man,  well  educated,  clear-brained,  brave,  am- 
bitious, generous,  trained  to  business  in  the  eastern  states, 
caught  by  the  lure  of  the  golden  west.  In  the  spring  of 
1852,  when  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  he  started  across  the 
continent  driving  his  own  team,  and  reached  California  in  the 
late  summer.  A  remark  that  he  made  to  his  wife  on  that  jour- 
ney showed  what  direction  his  ideas  were  taking.  She  was 
deploring  the  hardships  and  weariness  of  the  long  journey 
when  he  said :  'Never  mind,  I  will  build  a  railroad  one  of 
these  days  for  you  to  go  back  on."  If  we  are  not  mistaken,  his 
first  venture  was  to  open  a  miners'  store  at  Alleghany  City, 
to  supply  the  placer  miners  in  that  vicinity.  He  was  success- 
ful and  later  moved  to  Sacramento  to  engage  in  the  mercan- 
tile business.  His  ability  and  character  soon  attracted  atten- 
tion. 

From  the  first  organization  of  the  Republican  party  in 
California  he  was  a  Republican.  It  required  some  nerve  to  be 
a  Republican  in  those  days  in  California;  for  the  Democrats 
were  in  full  control  and  were  very  aggressive.  As  a  rule  the 
Democrats  from  the  southern  states  were  at  the  helm — for 
southern  men  cling  together  better  than  northern  men,  to 
them  the  word  Republican  was  the  same  as  abolitionist,  and  it 
was  with  mingled  wrath  and  contempt  that  they  always  re- 
ferred to  either.  More  than  once  even  Col.  E.  D.  Baker,  match- 
less orator  that  he  was,  was  assailed,  when  he  essayed  to  speak, 
with  stale  eggs  and  anathemas.  Through  that  Leland  Stan- 
ford was  open  in  the  defense  of  what  he  held  to  be  right,  and 
no  combine  could  cow  him  or  daunt  his  nerve.  In  those  hot 
years  he  made  a  state  reputation,  though  in  a  party  that  was 
hopelessly  in  the  minority. 

The  Democratic  party,  after  a  while,  divided,  those  from 
the  south  clinging-  to  the  Buchanan  platform,  those  generally 
from  the  north  following  the  lines  marked  out  by  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  but  this  only  intensified  the  bitterness.     But  after 


LELAND  STANFORD.  21 

the  Douglas  and  Lincoln  debates  in  1858,  there  began  to  come 
a  change  in  the  sentiments  of  men,  and  when  Senator  Brod- 
erick  was  killed  in  the  duel  with  Judge  Terry  and  the  genial, 
gentle  Ferguson  was  killed  in  a  duel  with  Penn  Johnson,  the 
Republicans  in  California  grew  more  and  more  aggressive, 
thousands  of  old-time  whigs  joined  their  ranks  and  in  1860 
they  elected  Stanford  governor.  He  was  an  able  executive, 
and  had  not  the  plans  of  the  Democrats  miscarried  there  would 
have  been  civil  war  in  California ;  and  we  believe  that  Stanford 
would  have  met  the  crisis  in  the  same  spirit  that  two  or  three 
of  the  war  governors  of  the  east  did. 

It  was  understood  that  most  of  the  arms  in  the  state  were 
in  the  fortress  of  Alcatraz,  and  General  Albert  Sidney  John- 
ston was  in  command.  Southern  men  were  secretly  drilling 
and  planning,  their  hope  being  that  Johnston  would  do  what 
Twiggs  had  done  in  Texas. 

We  think  it  was  McClatchy,  the  owner  of  the  Sacramento 
Bee,  who  sent  the  secret  dispatch  to  Washington  informing 
the  government  of  the  imminent  danger.  General  Sumner  was 
sent  half  disguised  to  supercede  Johnston;  the  steamer  with 
him  on  board  ran  to  Alcatraz  before  going  to  her  wharf. 
Johnston  met  Sumner  at  the  landing  and  at  Sumner's  demand 
turned  the  command  over  to  him.  Our  idea  is  that  though 
Albert  Sidney  Johnston  was  in  full  sympathy  with  the  south- 
ern cause;  though  when  relieved  of  his  command  of  Alcatraz 
he  at  once  resigned  his  federal  commission,  crossed  the  plains 
by  the  southern  route  and  at  once  entered  the  service  of  the 
confederacy;  he  never  would  have  given  up  Alcatraz  while 
filling  that  trust  under  the  government,  for  away  back  in  the 
Mexican  war  General  Worth  was  asked  who  most  nearly  filled 
his  ideas  of  a  perfect  soldier,  and  he  replied :  "Colonel  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston." 

Stanford  was  governor  from  1861  to  1863.  In  the  mean- 
time the  building  of  the  old  Central  Pacific  and  Union  Pacific 
railroads  had  been  inaugurated  and  Stanford  was  made  pres- 
ident of  the  former  company.  Theodore  Judah  was  the  engi- 
neer who  had  made  the  preliminary  surveys  over  the  Sierras 
and  declared  the  building  of  the  road  practical.     He  wanted  to 


22  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

build  it  over  the  present  route  of  the  Western  Pacific,  up  the 
north  fork  of  Feather  River,  but  was  overruled;  the  argu- 
ment used  at  the  time  by  the  "big  four" — Huntington,  Hop- 
kins, Crocker  and  Stanford — was  that  with  sufificient  help 
from  adjacent  counties,  from  San  Francisco  and  a  possible  sub- 
sidy from  the  government,  it  might  be  possible  to  push  the 
road  as  high  up  as  Dutch  Flat,  where  it  would  connect  with 
the  company's  wagon  road  to  Truckee,  and  if  the  Comstock 
mines  held  up  for  two  or  three  years,  between  the  railroad  and 
the  toll  road,  they  could  all  make  little  fortunes  of  $200,000  or 
$300,000  each.  And  let  no  one  imagine  that  their  thoughts 
were  narrow,  for  they  were  broader  than  any  other  set  of  men 
east  or  west. 

The  matter  was  put  in  the  hands  of  Senator  A.  A.  Sargent 
of  California  to  see  wdiat  could  be  obtained  from  Congress. 
The  war  was  on;  there  was  much  anxiety  about  California  and 
Nevada,  for  they  were  supplying  the  gold  and  silver  which  was 
the  leaven  of  the  nation's  finances,  and  the  two  roads — the 
Union  and  Central — were  given  their  charters  and  immense 
subsidies,  as  much  to  conciliate  and  hold  the  west  solid  for  the 
Union  as  were  the  possible  advantages  which  would  come  in  a 
material  way  could  the  road  be  finished.  The  work  done  by 
Senator  Sargent  in  that  connection  was  superb ;  years  after  the 
road  was  completed  Mark  Hopkins,  in  a  public  speech,  declared 
that  it  was  Sargent  who  made  the  building  of  the  road  pos- 
sible; that  the  company  was  anxious  to  reward  him,  but  he 
would  take  nothing. 

Let  no  one  discount  the  magnitude  or  majesty  of  that 
enterprise.  There  had  been  nothing  more  gigantic  undertaken 
in  our  country.  There  have  been  other  roads  since ;  there 
have  been  finer  ships  to  cross  the  Atlantic  than  the  little  car- 
avels of  Columbus,  but  those  caravels  crossed  first.  Even 
when  the  locomotives  touched  noses  at  Promontory,  there  were 
tens  of  thousands  of  business  men  who  said :  "Yes.  the  road  is 
finished  after  a  fashion,  but  who  is  going  to  make  it  pay?" 

The  company  made  it  pay,  but  some  of  its  methods  were 
very  tough.  Some  of  its  charges  were  outrageous :  in  a 
little  while  the  company  became  the  controlling  force  in  Cali- 


LELAND  STANFORD.  23 

fornia  politics.  It  directed  who  should  be  elected  senators,  who 
legislators,  who  judges;  it  crushed  newspapers  that  opposed  its 
methods  and  founded  others  to  fight  its  battles. 

This  must  often  have  clashed  with  Leland  Stanford's 
ideas  of  justice,  but  he  in  those  days  filled  exactly  the  Lady 
Macbeth  idea — what  he  did  highly  he  wanted  to  do  holily,  did 
not  want  to  play  false,  but  yet  was  willing  to  wrongly  win. 
The  company's  treatment  of  the  Sacramento  Union  was  no 
more  honorable  and  much  less  brave  than  that  of  buccaneers. 
The  railroad  ceased  to  be  a  common  carrier  in  its  hands  and 
from  the  first  was  held  as  a  private  snap. 

But  Stanford  performed  a  thousand  generous  acts  in 
those  days;  helped  many  a  struggling  enterprise;  even  in  his 
play  he  was  greatly  improving  the  stock  of  horses  in  this  coun- 
try, and  he  had  an  ambition  to  establish  the  greatest  vineyard 
in  the  world. 

He  was  in  truth  a  mighty  power  in  California ;  it  is  a  last- 
ing pity  that  he  could  not  have  seen  his  opportunity  and  make 
for  himself  a  name  most  revered  on  this  coast.  As  it  was, 
when  his  railroad  company  was  much  anathematized,  Governor 
Stanford  was  sincerely  revered. 

But  when  his  faculties  began  to  break  a  little  a  change 
came  over  him.  He  began  to  crave  flattery  more  and  more, 
and  took  up  the  belief  that  the  men  of  California  were  most 
ungrateful  and  intent  upon  robbing  him,  who  had,  in  his  own 
thought,  been  so  unselfishly  their  benefactor.  His  conscience 
was  his  compass,  but  he  was  sometimes  careless  about  having 
the  compass  adjusted  before  sailing. 

In  those  days  he  did  one  act  which  later  must  have  filled 
his  soul  with  remorse,  and  it  caused  him  to  break  the  warm 
friendship  which  had  so  long  existed  between  him  and  his 
partner,  C.  P.  Huntington.  A.  A.  Sargent  wanted  to  be 
elected  United  States  senator.  Huntington  was  eager  for  his 
election,  but  a  bee  was  in  Stanford's  bonnet.  He  seemed  to 
think  he  wanted  the  place;  that  it  would  crown  his  career  of 
success,  and  with  his  power  and  the  help  of  the  sycophants  by 
whom  he  was  surrounded,  he  defeated  the  man  who  had  made 
all  his  great  triumphs  possible. 


24  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

He  was  never  at  home  in  the  senate;  the  four  years  he 
spent  there  must  have  been  wearisome  years  to  him — Dead 
Sea  apples  that  turned  to  ashes  on  his  Hps. 

The  death  of  his  son  was  a  blow  from  which  he  never 
rallied.  To  him  there  never  was  a  son  like  his — he  never 
could  understand  the  justice  of  his  taking  off.  He  had  com- 
pelled everything-  to  go  his  way  for  twenty  years ;  he  thought 
there  was  nothing  he  could  not  do  or  hire  done,  but  when  the 
boy  sickened  and  grew  worse  and  he  could  not  command  the 
means  to  ward  off  death,  he  realized  at  last  that  money  was 
not  almighty  and  that  his  imperious  voice  had  nothing  that 
could  insure  him,  or  his,  one  moment  of  time.  He  founded  the 
great  university  in  his  son's  name,  and  it  wall  perpetuate  both 
their  names,  for  the  halo  that  gathers  over  a  great  educational 
institution,  as  the  years  and  centuries  ebb  and  flow,  after  a 
while  covers  every  scar  on  the  character  of  its  founder ;  it  cov- 
ers the  seams  of  age  after  a  while,  and  we  can  imagine  in  the 
distant  years  a  great  picture  taking  form  in  that  institution,  a 
radiant  boy  with  his  wand  of  gold  pointing  joyously  up  to  the 
golden  height  whereon  immortal  names  are  inscribed  in  letters 
of  everlasting  light ;  and  in  the  background  a  grave  woman  and 
man  sitting  gazing  there,  as  they  were  wont  to  here,  upon  the 
enthusiastic  boy  and  smiling  softly  as  though  thinking  how 
rugged  was  the  trail  up  which  they  climbed  until  beyond  the 
folding  doors  of  death  they  found  Elysian  fields. 


THE  OLD-TIME  MINERS. 

WE  ALL  have,  I  hope,  high  and  sincere  reverence  for 
the  Pioneers ;  for  those  men  and  women  who  began 
their  western  march  ahnost  three  hundred  years 
ago ;  first  in  grotesque  Httle  ships  across  the  Atlantic,  and  made 
their  first  stopping  places  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  ocean; 
then  a  little  later  began  to  push  their  way  against  the  wilder- 
ness and  the  savages ;  as  one  generation  sank  into  the  earth 
an.other  took  up  the  slow  march,  pursuing  its  way  until  the 
deep  woods  gave  place  to  smiling  homes  all  the  long  way 
to  and  beyond  the  Mississippi. 

Looking  back  we  mark  a  few  of  their  achievements,  the 
unremitting  labor  of  their  lives;  the  courage  that  bore  them 
up ;  the  poverty  that  bound  them  around  in  merciless  coils ; 
the  self-sacrifices  which  they  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course ; 
the  tenacity  with  which  they  never  failed  to  assert  that  their 
free  citizenship  should  never  be  trenched  upon ;  the  carrying 
with  them  the  little  red  school  house ;  the  high  manhood,  the 
divine  womanood  which  upheld  them  as  they  pushed  their 
way, — all  these  and  other  characteristics  shine  out  as  we  look 
back  over  the  trails  they  blazed  and  mark  the  temples  they 
u]:)reared,  and  to  the  eyes  of  the  minds  of  all  Americans,  they 
make  a  picture  of  enchantment,  not  one  tint  of  which  fades  as 
the  years  advance  and  recede. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  the  order  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  was  changed. 

Though  for  more  than  two  hundred  years  the  race  had 
been  toiling ;  though  their  heroic  work  had  transformed  a 
mighty  section  of  the  new  world ;  though  an  empire  of  meas- 
ureless natural  wealth  had  been  explored,  the  country  was 
poor  in  that  thing  called  money,  the  one  thing  that  electrifies 
enterprise  and  provides  a  just  reward  for  toil. 

There  came  a  whisper  that  on  the  other  shore  of  the 
continent  gold  had  been  discovered.  This  was  swiftly  con- 
firmed by  succeeding  news,  and  then  the  exodus  began. 


26  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Within  a  few  months  there  were  tossed  upon  that  west- 
ern shore  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men.  They  were 
nearly  all  young  men,  and  every  state  of  the  then  union  was 
represented. 

The  journey  had  steadied  and  broadened  them.  Whether 
by  the  long  treck  across  the  continent,  whether  by  lonely  ships 
around  Cape  Horn,  or  through  the  scramble  and  the  rush  by 
the  pestilential  Isthmus,  they  all  had  taken  on  new  ideas  by 
the  experience  they  had  been  through. 

As  a  rule  they  were  all  more  or  less  home  boys  and  the 
best  of  them  had  a  full  quota  of  provincialism. 

But  this  last  melted  away  faster  than  it  had  ever  before 
in  any  country. 

The  secret  was  that  the  mothers  they  kissed  when  they 
left  home  were  American  mothers,  and  as  the  differences 
among  American  mothers  are  the  differences  of  environment, 
it  did  not  require  long  for  their  sons  to  recognize  that  fact. 

Many  of  the  new  comers  stopped  on  the  seashore  or  in 
adjacent  valleys,  but  I  am  not  dealing  with  those  today.  It  is 
the  company  which  never  rested  by  the  sea  nor  in  the  soft 
valleys,  but  hurried  to  the  hills.  For  them  nothing  would  do 
but  the  native  gold.  The  art  of  extracting  it  was  simple  and 
quickly  learned.  And  when  at  night  the  day's  proceeds  were 
panned  and  cleaned  and  weighed,  the  miner  held  it  before 
his  eyes  and  invented  the  phrase :  "That's  the  stuff." 

And  who  were  these  miners?  They  were  as  a  rule  just 
American  boys  and  young  men.  They  had  come  from  every 
field,  from  every  school ;  they  were,  so  to  speak,  the  nation 
looked  at  through  the  big  ends  of  the  opera  class. 

All  recognized  that  they  were  living  in  a  land  that  had  no 
government,  but  they  got  together  in  the  different  camps  and 
resolved  that  while  there  was  no  law,  there  should  be  order, 
and  that  every  man  should  be  secure  in  what  was  rightly  his. 

Petty  criminals  fought  shy  of  those  camps.  Sometimes 
there  were  disputes  over  business  affairs.  When  they  could 
not  be  settled  privately  a  court  was  quickly  convened;  a  juror 
was  never  questioned  about  any  bias  or  prejudice  that  he 
thought  he  entertained  or  whether  he  had  formed  or  expressed 


THE  OLD-TIME  MINERS.  27 

any  opinion.  He  was  simply  asked  if  he  could  hear  the  case 
and  decide  according  to  the  law  and  evidence.  If  he  promised 
that,  it  was  enough. 

Some  of  those  trials  were  most  picturesque.  Will  Camp- 
bell was  mining  in  a  ravine  a  mile  or  two  outside  of  Downie- 
ville.  One  morning  three  or  four  miners  came  to  him  where 
he  was  at  work,  and  one  said :  "Mister,  did  you  back  in  the 
states  study  law?" 

Will  replied  that  he  did.  Then  it  was  explained  to  him 
that  a  big  Pennsylvania  Dutchman  was  trying  to  claim  the 
ground  that  one  of  the  boys  owned,  that  a  trial  had  been  set  for 
that  afternoon,  and  they  wanted  Campbell  to  go  to  camp  and 
try  the  case  for  them.  Campbell  replied,  "All  right,  if  one  of 
you  chaps  will  work  my  ground  while  I  am  gone,  I  will  go." 
This  was  agreed  to  and  Campbell  went  to  the  camp,  tried  and 
won  the  case.  He  told  me  about  it  later,  after  he  had  become 
an  eminent  lawyer  and  judge. 

He  said:  "I  was  nineteen  years  old.  I  had  just  gradu- 
ated ;  all  the  practice  I  had  ever  had  any  experience  in  was 
in  the  moot  courts  in  the  law  school.  I  did  not  know  a  vast 
amount  of  law,  but  I  had  brought  all  my  gall  with  me  to  Cal- 
ifornia, and  I  suppose  my  argument  that  day  was  one  calcu- 
lated to  scare  away  a  mountain  lion,  if  he  was  an  old  and  wary 
one  and  wished  to  avoid  trouble. 

'T  have  never  since  experienced  the  self-satisfaction  that 
was  mine  as  I  emerged  from  that  room  and  walked  out  on  the 
cleared  space  in  front  of  the  building.  Many  people  congratu- 
lated me  and  I  swallowed  it  all  as  though  it  was  my  due.  At 
last  the  big  Dutchman  came  along  and  said :  'Mister  Campbell, 
dot  vas  one  great  speech  vot  you  made  today.'  'Ah,'  I  replied, 
'do  you  really  think  so,  Uncle  Billie?' 

"  'Yaw,  I  tinks  so,'  he  said.  'It  just  lacked  but  von  ding 
to  make  it  one  very  great  speech.' 

"  'You  really  think  so,  Uncle  Billie,'  I  responded ;  'and 
pray  what  did  it  lack?' 

"  'It  lacked  sense,'  was  the  curt  answer. 

"The  boys  heard  it  and  it  cost  me  all  the  dust  I  had 
mined   for  a  week  previous,  to  get  out  of  camp.       1   have 


28  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

heard  of  it  from  time  to  time  ever  since.  But  it  did  me  lots 
of  good.  I  have  never  since  talked  as  learnedly  as  I  did  on  that 
day.  You  see.  the  ordinary  intellect  can  only  stand  about  so 
much." 

Men  who  see  no  children  for  months  have  upon  them  a 
heart-hung-er  which  men  in  civilization  can  never  comprehend. 

And  because  of  the  absence  of  women  and  children,  the 
wild  beast  in  many  a  soul  in  the  hills  comes  forth.  There  was 
no  restraint  upon  them  and  even  a  quartz  mill  runs  away  some- 
times when  the  governor  on  the  engine  ceases  to  act. 

Many  drank,  many  gambled,  many  were  killed  in  quar- 
rels ;  many  became  boisterous  and  reckless,  and  lives  were 
thrown  away,  which,  under  the  restraint  of  good  women's 
eyes,  might  have  made  great  names.  It  is  said  that  the  great 
Blucher  of  Prussia,  riding  over  a  dead-covered  battlefield, 
said  to  an  aide  who  was  half  overcome  by  the  horror  and  pity 
of  it :  "Control  yourself.  General !  When  the  winds  and  the 
deep-sea  surges  engage  in  battle,  the  shore  next  morning  is 
piled  deep  with  sea  weed  and  other  debris  of  the  storm.  It 
is  nature's  way;  these,  too,  are  but  debris  cast  up  by  the  storm 
of  yesterday." 

The  graves  on  the  tops  and  flanks  of  the  Sierra  are  still 
the  marks  on  the  shore  where  that  debris  was  thrown. 

In  another  way  character  was  formed  there.  The  resource- 
fulness which  out  of  the  rude  surroundings  developed  into  high 
manhood  and  superb  citizenship ;  which  with  the  means  at  hand 
accomplished  mighty  results ;  the  resolution  which  hid  suffer- 
ing in  men's  own  hearts;  the  transition  which  slowly  stran- 
gled the  brightest  hopes  ever  nursed  by  mortals  until  they  all 
went  out;  the  self-sacrifices  which  were  made,  those  making 
them  wearing  all  the  time  the  smile  of  contentment  and  peace, 
and  giving  up  what  was  sweeter  than  life  itself  as  the  tiredj 
child  drops  its  toys ;  acts  of  generosity  and  charity  to  make  the 
angel  of  mercy  weep  for  joy, — these  and  kindred  features 
made  up  the  unseen  tragedies  that  were  enacted  there,  unseen 
but  leaving  their  shadows  on  those  heights. 

What  was  visible  was  the  joy  and  enthusiasm  that 
reigned.     A\niat  songs  were  sung,  what  stories  were  told,  how 


THE  OLD-TIME  MINERS.  29 

\astly  the  vocabulary  of  the  language  was  enlarged,  to  pro- 
duce words  to  fit  all  occasions — the  echoes  or  the  ghosts  of 
them  still  roll  like  phantom  drums  through  those  hills. 

Let  no  one  think  those  camps  were  not  schools  of  patriot- 
ism. All  the  papers  from  the  lower  cities  were  read  and  re- 
read :  the  magazines  from  the  east  were  devoured,  the  new  lit- 
erature of  California  that  rang  out  in  the  words  of  Bret  Harte. 
of  '"Caxton;"  of  La  Conte ;  of  Barstow ;  of  Bartlett ;  of  Stout: 
of  Coolbrith :  of  O'Connell ;  of  Marshall,  and  the  others,  were 
household  words  in  the  camps.  And  the  letters  by  the  semi- 
monthly steamers — why  talk  about  patriotism  ?  When  a  letter 
comes  to  a  young  man  from  his  mother,  or  from  the  daughter 
of  some  other  young  man's  mother  five  thousand  miles  away, 
he  not  only  loves  his  country  but  loves  the  stokers  that  fed 
the  coal  to  the  furnaces  in  the  ship  that  brought  the  letter. 

And  from  among  those  men  there  grew  up  a  race  of  sci- 
entists that  had  few  instructors  save  as  they  set  the  hieroglyph- 
ics which  nature  had  embossed  upon  the  rocks  and  trees  and 
hills,  to  words,  and  in  their  souls  made  histories  of  them,  and 
through  those  histories  caught  the  secret  of  the  labors  that  had 
been  going  on  there  through  the  ages ;  the  work  of  the  earth- 
quake, the  glacier,  the  wnnds,  the  heat,  the  cold,  the  sunbeams 
— all  the  agents  which  the  Infinite  employs  in  rounding  a  world 
into  form. 

Xo  other  study  is  more  impressive.  With  every  leaf 
turned  in  that  book  of  nature,  the  more  accentuated  comes  the 
realization  of  the  majesty,  the  mercy  and  the  power  of  the 
Infinite  Architect  which  ages  before  man  had  an  existence  save 
in  the  mind  of  God  caused  the  plans  to  be  laid  and  approved 
through  which,  when  man  should  materialize,  a  field  would  be 
ready  for  him  where  his  mind  and  hands  might  find  employ- 
ment and  where  for  earnest  work  a  sure  reward  would  be 
awaiting  him  ;  and  where  when  he  became  great  enough  to 
understand  how  the  work  was  framed  and  the  reward  pro- 
vided, he  would  feel  like  "putting  the  shoes  from  ofif  his  feet," 
because  he  was  standing  on  holy  ground. 

And  another  character  of  men  was  developed  there ; 
strong  men  of  affairs,  captains  of  industry,  who  when  thev 


30  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

left  the  hills  and  entered  into  competition  with  ordinary  men 
were  found  to  be  masters  to  take  charge  of  any  work  that  was 
presented,  for  to  wrestle  with  the  forces  of  nature  and  over- 
come the  bastions  and  battlements  which  the  mountains  have 
upreared  in  their  own  defense,  make  men  stronger. 

They  were,  even  as  was  Jacob  by  his  all-night  wrestle  with 
the  Lord,  strengthened  by  the  labor,  and  because  of  it,  like 
Jacob,  they  took  on  new  titles  among  men. 

If  I  have  made  the  foregoing  plain,  it  will  be  seen  that 
while  there  were  miners  before  those  first  California  miners, 
and  while  there  have  been  miners  since  in  many  ways  their 
superiors  as  miners,  there  never  was  before,  never  has  been 
since,  just  such  a  band  as  were  they. 

They  had  no  homes  with  tender  home  influences  to  hold 
them  in  check ;  but  they  grew  tenderer  and  more  considerate  of 
others  because  of  the  absence  of  those  influences ;  they  had  no 
children  of  their  own,  but  that  made  them  fathers  by  adoption 
of  all  the  world's  children;  many  of  them  were  wild  and  reck- 
less, for  there  were  at  first  no  restraints  upon  them,  no  church 
spires  to  turn  their  gaze  upward;  they  turned  to  trees  which 
were  higher  than  church  spires,  and  to  the  sky  under  whose 
dim  sheen  they  slept,  and  were  perhaps  nearer  God  because  of 
their  environments  and  the  sentinel  stars  that  kept  solemn 
watch  above  them. 

With  a  steadfast  courage  they  worked  out  their  lives ; 
most  of  them,  personally,  are  forgotten,  but  because  they  lived 
and  toiled  and  kept  watch  that  society  should  be  kept  secure 
against  wrong  and  the  flag  above  them  be  kept  stainless,  the 
manhood  of  the  whole  coast  was  exalted  and  the  influence 
they  exerted  has  been  an  ennobling  one  to  the  whole  coast 
ever  since. 


THEODORE  D.  JUDAH. 

AS  THE  years  slowly  unwound  after  history  began  its 
record,  from  the  works  of  all  the  myriads  who  lived 
and  died  in  the  ancient  world,  seven  achievements  were 
separated  from  the  rest  and  called  the  "Seven  Wonders  of  the 
World."  The  first  was  the  pyramids  of  Egypt.  They  were 
built  by  slaves  to  gratify  the  whims  of  kings  and  to  make  for 
those  kings  sepulchres,  when  their  work  should  be  done.  The 
second  was  the  Pharos  built  by  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  to  be  a 
watch-tower  on  the  Nile.  The  third  was  the  hanging  gardens 
of  Babylon,  built  to  gratify  the  pride  of  a  king  or  queen.  The 
fourth  was  the  Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  which  was  built 
by  the  Asiatic  states  very  much  as  the  people  of  Utah  built 
the  Salt  Lake  temple.  It  required  the  patient  labor  of  thou- 
sands of  men  and  two  hundred  and  twenty  years  of  time  to 
complete  it.  The  fifth  was  the  statue  of  Jupiter  at  Olympia, 
altogether  glorious  in  ivory  and  gold  and  precious  stones.  The 
sixth  was  the  mausoleum  which  Artemesia  built  for  the  tomb 
of  her  husband,  and  the  last  was  the  colossus  of  Rhodes,  a 
statue  of  brass  built  in  honor  of  the  sun. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  none  of  these  were  to  be  of  any 
practical  use  to  the  world  except  the  watch-tower  built  by 
Ptolemy.  The  rest  were  either  for  tombs  or  in  honor  of  the 
deities  which  the  various  nations  worshiped.  In  our  day 
another  wonder  has  been  added  to  the  wonders  of  the  Old 
\\'f)rld.  It  was  not  for  a  tomb;  it  was  not  to  gratify  kingly 
pride;  it  was  not  to  make  an  ostentatious  display  of  wealth 
that  it  was  created.  The  object  was  to  open  a  new  highway 
for  trade  and  to  make  new  capitals  for  commerce  across  the 
continent.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  first  Pacific  railroad 
across  the  Sierra  Nevada  mountains  and  the  deserts  east  o': 
them. 

For  a  long  time  efforts  had  been  made  to  begin  some  tan- 
gible work  looking  to  the  building  of  a  transcontinental  rail- 
road.    Benton  had  advocated  it;  Fremont  had  advocated  it; 


32  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

the  ])ress  of  California  constantly  agitated  the  subject,  pointing- 
out  its  needs,  expressing  belief  in  its  practicability,  and  the 
glory  that  would  come  with  its  construction.  California  sen- 
ators and  representatives  had  urged  the  undertaking,  some 
half-hearted  preliminary  surveys  had  been  made,  but  as  a  whole 
the  people  of  the  country,  cowed  by  the  distance  and  the  de- 
scriptions of  the  route,  believed  the  work  impossible. 

Doubters  explained  that  even  could  the  road  be  Imilt.  it 
would  be  impossible  to  manufacture  rolling  stock  that  could 
stand  the  strain  of  a  three  thousand  mile  journey.  Capitalists, 
when  approached,  began  to  lock  their  safes.  With  that  air 
which  is  apt  to  attach  to  a  man  who  has  been  a  long  time  a 
banker,  they  would  explain  that  could  it  be  possible  to  build  the 
road,  the  revenues  from  it  would  not  for  fifty  years  be  suffi- 
cient to  pav  for  the  lubricating  fluid  in  the  bo.xes  of  the  car 
wheels. 

Then  they  would  pull  down  their  maps,  show  the  great 
American  desert  as  it  was  outlined ;  explain  that  from  the 
Missouri  to  the  Pacific  there  was  a  stretch  of  2,000  miles  of 
arid  lands,  desert  mountains  of  rock  and  barren  sand ;  then 
question  the  sanity  or  honesty  of  any  man  who  seriously  advo- 
cated the  pursuit  of  such  an  impossibility. 

It  makes  one  smile  to  think  what  has  been  done  since : 
how  limited  was  the  sagacity,  how  impotent  the  capacity,  how 
narrow  were  the  horizons  of  those  wise  asses  of  fifty  years 
ago. 

But  there  was  one  man,  Theodore  D.  Judah,  of  dilTerent 
mold.  He  was  among  men  what  the  eagle  is  among  birds. 
His  way  of  mounting  a  height  was  by  riding  up  it  on  the 
strong  wings  of  enthusiasm  and  courage,  but  he  was  careful 
to  assure  himself  in  advance  that  the  wings  were  strong  enough 
to  make  the  giddy  flight. 

^^'hen  on  the  crags,  no  matter  how  rude  his  eyrie  might 
be,  he  was  sure  of  its  safety,  for  he  himself  had  anchored  it. 
so  when  the  hurricane  was  raging  it  was  a  joy  for  him  to  flap 
his  strong  pinions  and  join  his  defiant  scream  to  the  clamors 
of  the  gale. 

When   the  work   of  building  the   road   is  spoken   of  or 


THEODORE  D.  JUDAH.  33 

thought  of,  the  glory  goes  to  four  men  in  Sacramento  whose 
names  have  been  so  closely  linked  with  that  road  that  all  other 
people  are,  by  the  great  masses  of  men,  forgotten  in  that  con- 
nection. But  Judah  was  the  man  who  first  dreamed  of  the 
enterprise,  and  followed  his  dream  with  his  instruments.  He 
scaled  all  the  mountain  tops ;  lie  made  his  surveys ;  he  worked 
vear  after  vear  upon  his  theme.  Because  of  him  the  project 
finally  rounded  into  form.  Because  of  him  the  road  was  begun. 
He  was  a  civil  engineer,  poor  in  purse,  Ijut  with  visions  in  his 
brain  sweeter  than  the  thirst  for  gold. 

He  built  the  road  from  Sacramento  to  Folsom.  As  he 
laid  nut  that  line  his  eyes  every  day  stretched  to  the  blue  moun- 
tains beyond,  until  the  idea  of  scaling  those  heights  with  the 
iron  horse  became  an  absorbing  passion  with  him.  So  on  his 
own  account  he  laid  his  lines  across  them  on  three  different 
routes.  He  followed  the  dream  through  half  as  man}-  \ears  as 
Columbus  did  before  the  Italian  obtained  the  three  little  ships 
and  their  poor  fittings  with  which  to  push  back  from  the  face 
of  the  ocean  the  veil  and  reveal  a  new  continent.  He  tried  the 
rich  men  of  San  Francisco.  They  heard  his  story;  they  smiled 
at  his  enthusiasm,  but  they  secretly  buttoned  up  their  pockets 
and  locked  their  safes  and  said  wisely  to  each  other  that  the 
man  was  an  enthusiastic  lunatic. 

Judah  had  made  the  preliminary  surveys  and  established 
that  the  work  was  practicable ;  that  it  was  but  a  matter  of 
pluck,  energy,  persistence  and  money  to  construct  the  road. 
But  months  and  years  slipped  away.  Talk  about  the  inertia 
of  matter !  It  does  not  compare  with  the  inertia  of  provincial 
minds,  or  at  times,  with  the  inertia  of  public  opinion. 

In  July,  1859,  the  great  Comstock  mines  east  of  the  Sierra 
Nevadas  were  discovered ;  later  the  rush  to  that  new  field  be- 
gan which  soon  swelled  into  a  stampede. 

The  men  who  later  were  the  magnates  of  the  Central  Pa- 
cific road — the  big  four— undertook  the  building  of  a  stage 
road  from  Dutch  Flat,  California,  on  the  west  flank  of  the 
Sierras  to  what  is  now  Truckee  on  the  eastern  slope.  They 
ga\e  the  direction  of  the  work  to  Judah.     While  that  was  in 


34  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

progress  he  laid  the  results  of  his  investigation  before  the  men 
who  later  organized  a  company  which  finally  undertook  the 
work.  He  pointed  out  that  the  plan  was  feasible;  that  it  w'as 
possible  to  scale  those  heights  and  to  build  the  western  end  of 
a  transcontinental  line.  At  last  he  awakened  enough  of  their 
sympathy  for  them  to  begin  to  help  him.  They  intended  to 
try  to  build  the  road  for  fifty  miles  to  connect  with  the  western 
terminus  of  the  wagon  road.  He  begged  them  to  take  another 
route,  pointed  out  that  by  taking  that  route  1,600  feet  in  ele- 
vation would  be  saved,  but  they  shook  their  heads  incredu- 
lously. They  said,  "Possibly  we  can,  but  such  subsidies  as  we 
can  get  and  by  such  help  as  we  can  draw  to  us,  complete  the 
road  as  high  as  Dutch  Flat,  and  then  if  the  Comstock  mines 
hold  out  for  a  few  years  we  can  all  make  little  fortunes."  And 
while  they  were  speaking  that  way,  this  man  was  in  thought 
starting  a  train  from  Sacramento,  seeing  it  scale  two  great 
ranges  of  mountains  and  the  desert  which  stretched  away  be- 
tween these  ranges  and  making  a  revolution  in  the  world's 
commerce.  In  thought  he  saw  cities  spring  up  along  the  trail 
which  he  should  blaze  in  the  wilderness.  He  saw  the  exhaus- 
tion, the  terror  and  the  fatigue  of  crossing  the  plains  taken 
away,  and  so  while  he  talked  strict  business  to  the  principals 
in  the  enterprise,  and  while  by  his  skill  no  mistakes  were  made 
in  estimating  grades  or  curves,  when  the  day's  work  was  fin- 
ished the  lullaby  that  he  went  to  sleep  on  w-as  the  far  ott  echo 
of  the  whistles  which  would  blow  in  midcontinent  before  his 
work  should  be  done. 

This  work  was  not  like  the  work  of  the  ancients.  It  was 
a  monument  built  to  Industry.  Its  object  was  to  forge  a 
mighty  link  to  connect  with  steel  the  two  great  oceans.  It 
was  to  push  the  frontier  back.  It  was,  through  a  dreary  and 
fearful  wilderness,  to  smooth  a  way  so  that  civilization  might, 
with  unsoiled  sandals,  advance  along  this  new^  path  and  build  to 
herself  temples.  It  was  to  be  a  monument  to  progress  which 
was  to  shine  out  on  the  world  fairer  than  did  the  watch  tower 
on  the  Nile ;  fairer  than  the  statue  of  Minerva,  with  its  gold  and 
ebony  and  ivory  and  precious  stones.  It  was  to  be  a  notice  of 
American  power,  much  more  impressive  than  was  the  statue 


THEODORE  D.  JUDAH.  35 

that  stood  at  the  entrance  of  Rhodes  in  honor  of  the  sun.     It 
was  to  herald  a  new  epoch. 

It  was  to  create  clouds  by  day  and  pillars  of  fire  by 
night  which  for  all  time  should  light  the  way  for  commerce. 
It  was  to  be  a  rolling  fort  of  defense  against  savages.  It  was 
to  make  possible  the  driving  away  of  the  frown  from  the  repel- 
lant  face  of  the  desert,  and  to  make  it  possible  for  fair  homes 
and  great  cities  to  appear  where  before  all  had  been  desolation 
since  the  beginning  of  time.  It  was  to  solve  new  feats  in  en- 
gineering, and  to  give  mankind  a  new  notice  that  the  earth 
and  all  therein  are  subject  to  the  domination  of  royal  brains. 
The  work  has  been  duplicated  north  and  south  since  then,  but 
that  does  not  detract  in  the  least  from  the  glory  of  the  first 
achievement,  and  the  inauguration  of  that  glory  was  due,  is 
due  and  always  will  be  due  more  to  T.  D.  Judah  than  to  any 
other  one  or  to  any  other  ten  men.  He  dreamed  it  out  first. 
He  established  its  practicability  by  his  unerring  instruments. 
He  turned  all  the  enthusiasm  of  his  great  nature  into  the  work 
until  he  infused  some  cool  business  brains  with  some  of  the 
fervor  of  his  energy  and  hope.  When  the  first  stakes  were  set 
he  went  to  Congress  and  renewed  there  his  impassioned  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  the  project,  and  when  the  line  was  completed 
to  Ogden,  then  when  its  success  had  been  established,  he  tried 
with  all  his  strength  to  bring  to  his  associates  the  aid  necessary 
to  purchase  the  Union  Pacific,  and  make  a  continuous  line 
under  one  company,  from  the  Missouri  to  Sacramento.  He 
wore  himself  out,  and  died  in  the  mighty  work,  but  his  life  was 
spared  until  the  road  was  finished,  and  now  it  is  his  monument. 
He  needs  no  other.  The  Union  Pacific  company,  in  gratitude 
for  the  solid  business  persistence  which  drove  west  the  eastern 
end  of  the  transcontinental  line,  built  for  the  Ames  on  the  sum- 
mit of  the  Rockies  a  monument  of  granite.  Judah  needs  no 
other  monument  but  tlie  road  itself.  But  it  would  be  a  graceful 
thing  for  the  company  which  was  organized  through  his  genius 
and  carried  to  success  by  his  genius,  to  build  to  him  on  the 
Sierras  a  monument  of  marble. 

He  was  a  great  man.  Among  men  he  was  like  Saul.  He 
was  taller  than  most  of  them ;  he  was  strongly  made ;  he  was 


36  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

massive  every  way.  He  was  given  the  enthusiasm  of  the  poet 
and  the  solid  combinations  of  the  scientific  engineer.  He  con- 
secrated his  life  to  the  eighth  wonder  of  the  world.  He  saw  it 
completed  and  then,  worn  out,  lay  down  and  died.  \\"hen  the 
names  of  the  strong  men  and  the  great  men  who  found  Cali- 
fornia a  wilderness  and  then  caused  the  transformation  which 
revealed  a  glorified  State,  are  called  over,  one  after  the  other, 
close  to  the  very  head  of  the  shining  list  should  be  the  name  of 
T.  D.  Judah. 

The  near  friends  of  the  stalwart  men  who  built  the  road 
mav  hold  that  the  foregoing  is  a  slighting  of  the  builders' 
sagacity,  public  spirit  and  prescience.  It  is  not  so  intended. 
What  they  did  was  a  wonder,  but  it  is  true  that  at  first  they 
did  not  believe  in  the  possibility,  much  less  the  feasibility,  of 
the  enterprise.  When  they  began,  their  hope  was  to  complete 
a  road  to  Dutch  Flat  only.  But  that  was  far  in  advance  of  the 
opinions  of  the  masses  of  men  in  California,  almost  infinitely 
in  advance  of  the  "sound  thought"  of  the  wise  financiers  of  the 
East. 

It  was  all  clear  to  Judah  from  the  first;  the  splendor  of  it, 
the  practicability  of  it,  what  it  would  be  to  native  land. 

It  came  of  the  sagacity,  the  poetry,  the  patriotism  of 
the  man. 

He  heard  the  far-off  call  and  gave  the  command.  The 
mountains  were  bowed  down,  the  valleys  exalted,  the  rolling 
waves  of  the  desert  subdued. 

On  Memorial  days,  when  the  list  of  the  names  of  the  mas- 
terful men  of  California  is  read,  when  that  of  Judah  is  reached 
the  chariots  of  the  world's  commerce  should  be  halted  as  the 
great  name  is  spoken. 


CHARLIE  FAIRFAX. 

I  SAY  "Charlie."  but  in  truth  had  he  gone  to  England  and 
claimed  his  title,  he  would  have  been  Lord  Charles  Fair- 
fax, f(^r  he  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  House  of  Fair- 
fax, and  at  the  time  he  lived  was  entitled  to  be  the  head  of  the 
house,  though  he  was  born  in  Virginia  and  was  of  the  third  or 
fourth  generation  of  Virginian  Colfaxes. 

He  showed  his  lineage  in  three  or  four  characteristics.  He 
was  handsome  and  every  look  was  of  a  high-born  race.  There 
is  an  old  belief  that  it  requires  seven  generations  of  colts  to 
breed  up  from  a  cold-blooded  dam  a  thoroughbred.  If  the 
same  rule  applies  to  men,  then  Charlie  Fairfax  had  only  thor- 
oughbred ancestors  for  quite  five  hundred  years ;  for  when  him- 
self he  was  the  most  absolutely  natural  gentleman  that  I  ever 
saw.  He  had  a  grace  of  action,  a  natural  courtesy ;  a  thought- 
fulness  for  guests  and  a  way  of  making  men  feel  that  he  had 
a  solicitude  for  their  well-being  and  happiness  that  could  not 
be  imitated  by  any  man  that  I  ever  met. 

Behind  it  all  he  held  within  his  breast  a  lion's  heart,  that 
no  danger  could  appall — he  was  absolutely  without  fear.  He 
would  have  ridden  beside  Cardigan  at  Balaklava,  or  Pickett 
at  Gettysburg,  and  one  to  have  seen  his  face  would  have 
thought  he  was  on  the  way  to  a  picnic. 

With  these  qualities  it  may  be  asked  why  he  did  not  make 
himself  a  great  name.  We  suspect  it  was  because  of  his  train- 
ing in  part,  and  also  in  part  certain  qualities  of  his  mind  which 
made  success  impossible.  From  earliest  childhood  he  was 
taught  that  he  must  keep  his  honor  pure ;  that  he  must  never 
fail  in  courage,  and  never  for  a  moment  forget  that  his  ances- 
tors for  many  generations  had  all  been  gentlemen. 

He  was  given  a  good  education,  but  slaves  did  the  work 
around  him  and  he  never  had  the  least  business  training :  was 
never  taught  even  to  think  of  the  every-day  duties  of  life,  or 
the  value  of  money,  or  that  the  day  might  come 'when  cares 
would  enter  his  life  or  the  need  of  honest  work  on  his  part 


38  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

would  be  a  duty.  He  w-as  brought  up  on  a  farm  in  Virginia ; 
he  was  an  expert  with  firearms  of  all  kinds ;  he  loved  to  hunt 
and  could  lure  fish  from  the  streams,  but  he  never  held  a  plough 
or  swung  an  axe — why  should  he?  Why  should  he  undertake 
to  compete  with  slaves? 

What  could  such  a  man  as  that  do  in  a  land  such  as  Cali- 
fornia was  in  those  first  days,  when  there  was  a  wilderness  to 
subdue,  an  empire  to  create,  and  when  progress  was  driven 
on  by  an  energy  as  tireless  as  that  which  keeps  the  stars  moving 
in  their  processions  ? 

He  was  elected  clerk  of  the  Supreme  court  of  California, 
which,  it  was  said,  paid  a  salary  of  $30,000  per  annum.  But 
he  saved  nothing  from  it.  What  was  the  difference  whether 
he  had  a  few  thousands  on  hand  or  owed  a  few  thousands  in 
debts?  A  multitude  of  anecdotes  were  told  of  him  in  those 
days.  He  had  a  beautiful  wife — his  home  was  a  dream — but 
when,  as  he  did  sometimes,  go  home  intoxicated,  his  wife  would 
not  scold,  but  would  cry.  One  summer  night,  in  Sacramento, 
he  started  home  in  that  condition.  It  was  about  2  :30  a.  m. 
Not  a  drop  of  rain  had  fallen  for  four  months  in  Sacramento, 
and  there  was  no  prospect  of  a  drop  falling  for  four  months 
to  come.  But  Charlies  banged  away  at  the  door  of  a  dry  goods 
store  until  finally  a  sleepy  clerk  responded  and  opened  the  door. 
Fairfax  bought  an  umbrella  and  went  home.  He  admitted 
himself  as  softly  as  he  could,  ascended  noiselessly  to  his  wife's 
apartments,  where  the  gas  was  turned  half-down;  sat  down 
and  raised  the  umbrella  over  his  head.  By  this  time  his  wife 
had  awakened,  and,  sitting  up  in  bed,  she  said  sharply: 
"Charles  Fairfax!  What  are  you  doing?  Have  you  gone 
crazy."  "No,  Ada,  dear,"  was  the  reply;  "just  waiting  for  the 
shower." 

He  was  going  home  about  4  :30  one  morning  when,  pass- 
ing an  open  stand  on  the  corner — it  would  be  called  a  "bufifet" 
nowadays;  it  was  called  "pigsfoot  corner"  then — Fairfax 
stopped  at  the  counter  and  ordered  a  cup  of  hot  coffee  and  a 
sandwich.  When  they  were  disposed  of  he  felt  in  all  his  pock- 
ets, but  had  not  a  penny.  He  explained  how  things  were  to 
the  old  German  who  kept  the  place ;  told  him  who  he  was  and 


CHARLIE   FAIRFAX.  39 

that  he  would  bring  the  money  when  he  came  up  town  next 
da.x.  But  that  was  not  satisfactory.  The  German  came  around 
the  counter,  took  him  by  the  arm  and  said :  "Dere's  too  many 
your  kinds  of  cusses  dese  days ;  you  gums  inside  and  stays 
mit  me  till  dot  bill  vos  zettled."  Charlie  quietly  went  around 
the  counter  and  took  a  seat  in  full  view  of  the  street.  An 
hour  later  an  early-awake  merchant  came  hurriedly  down  the 
street  on  his  way  to  business.  Glancing  over  the  counter  he 
saw  Fairfax;  stopped  and  said:  "Fairfax,  what  in  the  Lord's 
name  are  you  doing  there."  "I'm  in  jail,"  said  Charlie ;  "I  am 
in  arrears  to  this  gentleman  in  the  sum  of  twenty  cents ;  he  has 
served  a  restraining  order  on  me  and  threatens  to  make  it  a 
perpetual  injunction."  At  last  the  matter  was  explained,  the 
merchant  advanced  the  twenty  cents  and  Charlie  was  permitted 
to  go  home.  But  on  leaving,  Charlie  took  off  his  hat  and  with 
a  courtly  grace  bowed  to  the  bewildered  pigs  foot  vendor  and 
assured  him  that  he  had  never  tasted  finer  coffee  and  sand- 
wiches. 

He  had  another  experience  in  San  Francisco.  He  had 
been  in  the  city  two  or  three  days,  and  woke  one  morning 
to  find  that  he  had  not  a  penny  in  his  clothes.  He  went  out 
on  Montgomery  street  and  there  met  an  old  friend,  who  said : 
"Fairfax,  have  you  been  to  breakfast?"  He  answered,  "No," 
whereupon  the  friend  said :  "I  wish  you  would  ask  me  to 
breakfast,  for  last  night  I  hit  a  faro  bank  and  went  broke  inside 
of  twenty  minutes."  '"But  I  have  not  a  cent,  either,"  said 
Fairfax.  Both  laughed  and  were  discussing  how  thev  were 
going  to  manage  to  get  breakfast,  when  a  mutual  friend  of  both 
came  up,  and  said:  "Gentlemen,  just  around  on  Sacramento 
street  is  the  finest  restaurant  in  the  world.  Come  and  have 
breakfast  with  me!" 

After  proper  hesitation  they  accepted.  A  superb  break- 
fast was  ordered,  but  when  nearly  finished  the  friend  said : 
"There's  my  old  friend  Hastings  at  the  door.  I  must  see  him ; 
please  excuse  me  one  moment." 

He  did  not  return.  They  nibbled  at  the  remnants  of  the 
breakfast  for  five  minutes  or  more  and  then  Fairfax  said: 
"1-Ie's  gone;  what  are  we  going  to  do?"    "Blamed  if  I  know," 


40  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

was  the  reply.  Fairfax  called  a  waiter  and  said :  "Is  it  time 
for  spring  chickens  yet?"  The  waiter  replied  that  they  had 
some  exceptionally  fine  ones. 

"Well,"  said  Charlie,  "broil  us  two,  and  look,  ye,  I  want 
them  broiled  slowly  until  they  take  on  just  the  right  brown. 
I  would  rather  wait  than  have  them  hurriedly  cooked." 

The  chickens  were  brought  on.  They  had  been  slowly 
cooked  and  were  slowly  eaten.  Just  as  the  final  crisis  was 
imminent  a  Sacramento  friend  of  Fairfax  came  in.  In  a  word 
Fairfax  explained  the  desperation  of  the  case;  the  friend 
laughed,  and  saying.  "I  must  get  a  hurried  breakfast  for  I 
am  busy  today,"  held  out  his  hand  which  had  a  twenty-dollar 
piece  in  it,  which  in  the  handshake  was  transferred;  then 
Charlie  settled  the  bill,  tipped  the  waiter  and  the  two  went  out. 
Just  beside  the  door  stood  the  friend  who  had  asked  the  two 
to  breakfast.  In  a  rage,  Fairfax  demanded  why  he  had  played 
a  trick  like  that  upon  them.  "You  see,"  said  the  friend,  "I  had 
not  had  a  morsel  of  food  for  two  days  and  I  was  hungry. 
Then  they  all  laughed  and  Fairfax  gave  the  man  $5  of  the  $20 
he  had  just  borrowed;  $5  to  the  other  friend,  and  said,  "That 
leaves  me  $4,  and  I  can  get  home  with  that." 

After  some  years  in  California,  Fairfax  went  back  to  Vir- 
ginia to  visit  his  father  and  mother. 

In  his  absence,  his  father  had  become  a  fanatical  prohi- 
bitionist ;  brought  out  all  his  wines  and  liquors  and  poured 
them  on  the  ground.  Charlie  had  written  that  he  was  coming 
and  was  therefore  expected.  He  reached  the  old  home  one 
morning  and  found  his  mother  in  the  living  room.  After  the 
excitement  of  the  meeting  had  subsided  a  little  the  mother  said : 
"Charlie,  you  know  how  papa  is  about  all  kinds  of  liquor,  so 
when  you  wrote  that  you  were  coming  I  got  a  bottle  of  the 
best  for  sale  in  Richmond;  it  is  in  the  cabinet  and  whenever 
you  want  a  little  you  will  find  it."  "\A'el1.  mother,  inasmuch 
as  I  have  not  seen  you  for  a  good  while  I  believe  I  will  drink 
your  health  now,"  said  Charlie,  and  he  did.  Then  he  went 
up  to  meet  his  father  in  the  library,  where  his  mother  said  he 
would  find  him.  There  were  warm  greetings,  but  after  a  few 
minutes  the  father  said :     "Charlie,  you  know  what  my  senti- 


CHARLIE   FAIRFAX.  41 

ments  are  about  all  alcoholic  drinks,  but  you  have  been  out 
west,  and  so  when  I  heard  you  were  coming,  I  quietly  sent  for 
a  bottle  of  the  best  Bourbon.  It  is  in  that  bookcase,  the  third 
from  the  door,  and  when  you  want  a  drink  I  will  turn  my 
back  on  you  so  as  not  to  see  you." 

"Well,  father,"  said  Charlie,  "it  is  seven  years  since  I've 
been  home;  I  believe  it  is  my  duty  to  drink  to  your  long  life," 
and  with  that  he  went  to  the  bookcase,  found  the  bottle  and 
got  outside  the  drink.  Then  he  asked  where  Jeff  was  (the  old 
colored  servant),  who  had  been  his  playmate  in  childhood. 

He  was  told  that  Jeff  was  probably  in  the  carriage  house 
or  stables,  and  Charlie  started  out  to  find  him.  Jeff  was  wild 
with  delight  and  expressed  his  joy  in  exaggerated  antics.  But, 
cooling  down  a  little  after  awhile,  he  said,  "Massie  Charlie, 
yo  knows  how  crazy  old  Massie  has  got  on  de  liker  business, 
but  I  heard  you  wuz  comin',  and  Ah  says,  young  Massie  is  not 
goin'  ter  be  cheated.  I  stole  seben  dozen  eggs,  sold  'em  and 
got  der  finest  bottle  you  eber  tasted  and  it's  heah  in  der  hay- 
mow." Charlie  took  a  drink  with  Jeff.  After  awhile  he  asked 
for  Ste\e,  the  gardener.  He  found  him  trailing  a  grape  vine. 
Steve  was  a  quiet  old  darkie,  but  after  awhile  he  said,  "Massie 
Charlie,  I  knowd  yo  was  comin'  and  what  old  Massie  thinks 
'bout  drinkin',  so  look  a  heah!"  There,  under  a  leaf  in  the 
cabbage  patch,  was  another  bottle  and  Charlie  drank  with 
Steve. 

All  his  life  thereafter  he  declared  that  there  was  nothing- 
else  so  perilous  to  perfect  sobriety  as  to  visit  a  prohibition  ranch 
before  breakfast  in  the  morning. 

Fairfax  spent  some  time  in  Virginia  City,  Nev. 

One  night  a  gentleman  was  escorting  his  own  wife  and 
Mrs.  Fairfax  to  some  entertainment  when  they  met  a  notorious 
ruffian,  who,  on  seeing  them,  loaded  the  air  with  imprecations 
and  anathemas  aimed  at  them. 

It  was  heard  by  others  who  when,  three  hours  later,  they 
saw  Fairfax  coming  down  the  street,  knew  by  his  manner  that 
something  serious  was  on,  caught  him  and  begged  him  not  to 
mind  what  the  ruffian  had  said,  that  he  was  drinking  and  a 
most  brutal  and  dangerous  man ;  to  which  Fairfax  replied : 

4 


42  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

"\Miat  do  I  care  for  that  thug?  I  want  to  find  the  man  who 
permitted  him  to  insult  my  wife  and  his  own  wife  and  did  not 
kill  him." 

One  day  on  the  street  in  Sacramento  Fairfax  became  en- 
easred  in  an  altercation  with  a  man  who  at  one  time  had  been 
a  deputy  clerk  under  Fairfax.  The  quarrel  grew  fierce  and 
they  proceeded  to  blows,  when  the  man  drew  a  sword  from 
the  cane  he  was  carrying  and  drove  it  through  the  shoulder 
of  Fairfax  below  the  clavicle.  Fairfax,  who  was  a  dead  shot, 
drew  a  deringer  from  his  vest  pocket,  cocked  it  and  aimed  it 
at  the  man;  then  he  dropped  his  arm  and  said:  "You  are  a 
cowardly  murderer;  you  have  killed  me,  but  you  have  a  wife 
and  children  and  I  will  spare  your  life,"  and  then  sank  fainting 
into  the  arms  of  a  friend. 

It  was  thought  the  wound  was  fatal,  but  at  last  he  rallied 
from  its  effects  and  lived  eleven  years.  When  he  died,  a  post- 
mortem was  held  and  the  surgeon  said  to  one  of  the  friends  of 
Fairfax :  "Do  you  say  this  wound  was  received  eleven  years 
ago?"  When  answered  in  the  affirmative,  the  surgeon  said: 
"Then  God  must  have  interposed  to  save  his  life.  Save  where 
the  blade  entered  and  made  its  exit  the  wound  is  as  fresh  and 
unhealed  as  though  made  but  an  hour  ago.  It  is  the  most 
astonishing  thing  in  the  history  of  wounds." 

The  memory  of  Charlie  Fairfax  lingers  with  only  a  few 
old-time  friends  now,  whereas  his  name  should  have  had  a 
national  and  international  fame;  for  he  had  abundant  talent, 
the  splendid  prestige  of  an  honored  name.  A  little  discipline 
in  youth  and  something  high  to  call  out  his  manhood  as  he 
went  out  into  the  world,  would  have  brought  unmeasured 
honors  to  him;  but  he  never  would  take  life  seriously  and 
seemed  to  care  nothing  about  the  name  he  was  to  leave,  except 
that  no  taint  of  dishonor  should  attach  to  it. 


THE  GENTLEMAN  FROM  PIKE. 

IN  THE  West  (I  suspect  it  is  so  everywhere)  are  men 
whom  their  fellowmen  designate  as  "empire  builders." 
Some  of  them  deserve  the  title.  When  men  put  the  ma- 
chinery in  motion  and  watch  and  work  until  it  is  made  clear 
that  it  will  grind  away  the  barbarism  of  the  frontier,  and  make 
possible,  out  of  what  was  a  wilderness  to  create  glorified  states, 
they  are  entitled  to  wear  the  badge  of  empire  builders. 

There  have  been  many  of  these  in  the  world.  Romulus 
with  his  plough  marked  the  boundaries  of  what  was  to  be 
"The  eternal  City"  and  maintained  his  place  until  it  was  ac- 
cepted as  true  that  a  new  nation  had  been  created.  He  was  an 
empire  builder. 

When  Fernando  Cortes  burned  his  ships  that  there  might 
be  no  retreat  and  proceeded  to  overthrow  the  Aztec  dynasty 
with  its  human  sacrifices,  and  on  that  soil  to  plant  a  Christian 
nation,  whatever  else  may  be  said  of  him  and  his  methods,  he 
was  certainly  an  empire  builder. 

Almost  all  nations  preserve  the  traditions  of  how  their 
countries  were  first  rounded  into  civilized  form,  and  to  hold 
as  empire  builders  the  first  actors  irt  the  great  drama.  We  in 
the  United  States  have  had  many  of  these ;  their  names  would 
make  a  long  and  majestic  roll. 

But  with  most  of  these  there  was  a  lofty  or  deep  down 
selfish  purpose. 

Some  have  been  intent  upon  creating  a  place  which  would 
require  high  officers,  and  the  unspoken  thought  was  'T  will 
fill  the  very  highest  of  them  and  make  of  mine  a  name  to  be 
remembered." 

Others  have  been  impelled  by  a  desire  to  found  on  a  firm 
basis  the  religion  which  they  believed  was  the  right  one  and 
to  hedge  it  round  with  safeguards  which  would  last  for  all 
time. 

Some  have  said  to  themselves :  "The  curse  of  the  world 
is  poverty ;  in  that  new  land  there  will  be  opportunities,  so  soon 


44  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

as  order  can  be  established,  to  gather  rapidly  what  men  really 
cGvet  most,  a  vast  treasure  in  gold  and  lands,  all  that  the  land 
can  produce  and  all  that  gold  can  buy." 

Others,  dissatisfied  with  all  human  government,  have 
determined  that  there  shall  at  last  be  one  perfect  government, 
which,  when  the  world  realizes  its  perfections,  there  will  be 
an  epoch :  the  nations  will  accept  it,  and  the  cry  will  be,  "  'Bout 
face !"  and  "Forward,  march !' 

Out  of  all  these  I  select  the  very  greatest,  for  a  brief 
review. 

I  refer,  of  course,  to  "the  gentleman  from  Pike."  He  is, 
or  at  least  was,  half  a  century  ago,  unlike  all  others.*  He  did 
not  dream  of  going  out  and  conquering  a  kingdom.  He  had 
no  plan  for  starting  a  new  religion.  He  was  satisfied  with 
what  he  had.  His  choice  lay  between  the  Baptist  and  the 
Methodist,  but  he  inclined  toward  the  latter  because  there  was 
more  shout  to  it  and  less  use  for  water. 

He  had  no  desire  to  found  any  new  government.  His  pri- 
vate belief  was  that  there  w^as  already  too  much  government 
in  the  world. 

Neither  did  he  dream  of  finding  gold  or  silver  mines. 
They  were  out  of  his  line. 

What  he  wanted  was  more  land,  especially  grass  land.  If 
near  it  there  could  be  woods  with  wild  game;  mast  for  his 
pigs,  plenty  of  berries  in  the  summer,  and  nuts  and  wild  honey 
to  be  gathered  later,  they  would  all  be  welcome. 

Most  people  gain  their  impressions  from  their  immediate 
surroundings  and  so  this  pathfinder  in  secret  thought  wanted 
to  find  a  new  Missouri,  as  INIissouri  was  before  the  land  was 
increased  in  value  by  the  coming  of  so  many  unwelcome  neigh- 
bors. Cheap  and  rich  lands  without  troublesome  neighbors, 
whose  thrift  magnified  the  carelessness  of  his  methods  by  com- 
parison. 

So.  upon  his  prairie  schooner  he  loaded  his  household 
goods,  leaving  a  corner  in  the  huge  wagon  bed  for  his  house- 


*Half  a  century  ago  Pike  County,  Missouri,  was  so  strongly  rep- 
resented in  California  that  at  last  all  emigrants  across  the  plains  were 
referred  to  as  "Pike  county  men." 


THE  GENTLEMAN  FROM  PIKE.  45 

hold  g"ods,  yoked  his  oxen  and  hitched  them  to  the  wagon,  tied 
a  cow  behind  the  wagon,  then,  heading  his  team  to  the  west, 
started. 

Then  the  air  of  the  wilderness  began  to  be  sanctified  Ijv 
his  swear  words,  and  so  varied,  so  picturesque  and  all  embrac- 
ing was  his  vocabulary,  that  timid  animals  in  his  path  fled  at 
hearing  it,  and  the  eagle  on  swift  wing  and  fast-beating  heart 
sought  his  eyrie  to  regain  his  usual  repose  of  manner. 

He  had  heard  that  there  were  plenty  of  grass  and  good 
water  one  hundred  or  two  hundred  or  a  thousand  miles  away, 
and  those  were  the  things  he  wanted. 

If  the  sky  was  sapphire  above  him  and  the  winds  were 
laid,  he  merely  said  to  himself.  "It  looks  like  to  be  a  good  day," 
and  drove  on ;  maybe  he  sang  a  little.  If  the  winds  rose  and 
the  dust  half-blinded  him.  he  did  not  mind  them;  he  never  even 
cleared  his  tln'oat  except  when  he  wanted  his  vocal  chords  to 
help  him  in  emphasizing  his  wishes  to  the  oxen. 

He  carried  a  stock  of  adjectives  with  which  to  adorn  his 
oration  in  case  the  wild  man  disputed  his  trespass;  he  carried 
an  old-fashioned  fowling-piece  with  which  to  convert  wild  ani- 
mals into  food :  he  and  his  wife  and  white  headed  children  ate 
their  simple  food  and  never  murmured,  for  the  open  air  and 
exercise  are  tonics  for  the  appetite. 

Thus,  day  by  day.  he  toiled  on ;  night  by  night  the  wagon 
supplied  a  house  and  sleeping  room ;  a  frying  pan  and  coffee 
pot  and  a  brush  fire  were  enough  cooking  utensils  for  the 
whole  brood,  and  the  march  was  continued  until  the  promised 
land  was  found  and  pre-empted. 

It  was  all  made  possible  because  the  man  was  not  sensi- 
tive ;  it  seemed  to  him  duty,  and  the  doing  of  it  was  a  matter 
of  course. 

It  was  made  possible  because  the  undemonstrative  woman 
in  the  wagon  had  enlisted  to  walk  by  the  man's  side  while  life 
lasted :  what  she  held  repressed  in  her  own  heart  who  can  tell  ? 
When  the  wolves  howled  around  them  by  night  and  the  hoot 
of  the  owl  became  at  last  a  sound  of  derision,  it  was  she  who 
i|uielcd  the  fears  of  the  children  ;  when  she  thought  that  in  the 
c\-ent  of  an  accident  or  illness  she  would  have  to  be  both  physi- 


46  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

cian  and  nurse ;  when  she  dreamed  at  night  of  the  dainty  things 
she  in  girlhood  had  planned  to  have,  and  then  awoke  with  only 
the  natural  savagery  of  the  frontier  to  greet  her  eyes,  she  hid 
the  feeling  that  it  awakened  deep  in  her  soul  and  when  her 
children  cried  at  the  desolation  and  loneliness,  it  was  her  arms 
around  them  and  the  simple  song  on  her  lips  that  hushed  them. 
Talk  of  devotion  and  courage  and  that  fortitude  which  faces  a 
hard  lot  every  day  while  the  years  come  and  go,  without  plaint 
and  without  repining ;  where  else  can  a  harder  test  be  found? 

This  movement  of  the  Pike  county  man  to  the  west  lasted 
more  than  half  a  century.  It  was  most  pronounced  in  the 
forties,  when  he  never  rested  until  he  stood  on  the  bank  of  the 
Columbia ;  and  in  the  fifties,  when  his  destination  was  the  val- 
ley through  which  flows  the  Sacramento. 

And  the  wonderful  part  was  that  he  did  not  know  that  he 
was  a  hero. 

"Did  you  not  realize  when  you  started  that  you  might  have 
to  fight  your  way?"  was  asked  one  of  them. 

"Of  course,"  was  the  reply.  "In  one  form  or  another  yer 
always  has  ter  fight  yer  way.  If  it  isn't  Injuns  it's  thar  thirst 
or  thar  hunger  or  thar  sickness,  one  blamed  thing  after  another. 
It's  all  in  thar  play." 

But  nature  is  responsive  sometimes  to  men's  wishes,  and 
women's  longings.  As  the  company  increased,  the  silence 
which  had  so  long  surrounded  the  wilds  like  a  robe  was  rent  by 
the  cries  of  advancing  hosts.  At  last,  out  of  the  rough  out- 
lines of  the  wilderness,  states  were  hewed  into  form ;  then  came 
the  scream  of  the  locomotive  through  the  majestic  mountains 
to  dispute  the  scream  of  the  eagle ;  the  chariots  of  commerce 
began  their  roll  and  it  was  heralded  to  the  world  that  in  the 
great  west  a  new.  mighty  empire  had  been  created. 

Who  laid  the  foundation  of  this  empire?  AMio  steadied 
it  through  its  infant  years?  To  whom  is  the  credit  most  due 
for  what  it  now  is?  There  are  many  to  claim  the  honor,  but 
who  says  the  first  and  highest  recognition  is  not  due  to  the 
Who-haw  Empire  Builder — the  gentleman  from  Pike  ? 


COLONEL  E.  D.  BAKER. 

WHEN  alone,  sometimes,  the  present  vanishes,  and 
from  out  of  the  soundless  past  stately  forms  stalk 
into  the  present,  their  sovereign  faces  wearing  the 
calm  of  the  long  ago,  but  their  kindly  eyes  seem  aglow  with 
memories  of  other  days  and  other  scenes  which  once  filled  the 
full  measure  of  man's  duty  here  and  in  which,  in  the  splendor 
of  their  manhood,  they  bore  their  part. 

Among  them  there  always  comes  the  shade  of  E.  D.  Baker. 
It  is  natural  that  it  should  be  so,  for  to  earnest  boyhood  he  was 
always  the  ideal  man,  among  the  very  foremost  men  who  ever 
lived  on  the  Pacific  coast;  who  ever  went  from  the  Pacific  coast 
and  died  for  his  country.  About  five  feet  eleven  inches  in 
height,  and  built  up  to  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds ; 
his  face  was  that  of  Pericles,  his  eyes  in  repose  ^ombered  like 
a  hawk's  in  his  wide  circles  over  earth  or  ocean  in  the  after- 
noon sunbeams,  but  blazing  like  an  eagle's  when  aroused — that 
was  the  picture  he  made  in  his  daily  life  among  men. 

But  when  on  the  rostrum  some  theme  worthy  of  him  called 
him  to  its  championship;  then  there  was  a  transformation 
scene,  and  listening  and  watching  more  than  once  I  have  said  to 
myself:  "It  is  as  when  Moses  and  Elias  were  transfigured." 
Face,  eyes,  hands  were  all  alive,  his  voice  took  on  a  shrill 
cadence  that  carried  men  before  it  at  will,  and  each  sentence 
closed  either  ablaze  with  lightnings  and  deep  roll  of  the  thun- 
ders that  his  soul  had  called  up,  or  with  a  rhythm  like  a  lofty 
anthem.  When  thus  awakened  he  was  all  energy,  alive  through 
and  through,  the  ideal  of  Cicero's  orator  materialized :  the 
ideal  man  of  all  the  earth. 

At  that  time  he  was  a  great  lawyer ;  he  had  been  a  brilliant 
soldier;  he  was  fitted  for  any  emergency.  His  politics  were 
antagonized  by  the  controlling  political  power  that  then  ruled 
the  Golden  State :  his  assailants  were  sometimes  the  brilliant 
men  of  the  opposition,  sometimes  the  canaille,  but  he  met  them 
all,  he  mastered  the  learned  and  eloquent  by  his  superior  learn- 


48  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

ing  and  eloquence,  and  the  coarser  class  by  showing  them,  to 
their  discomfiture,  the  advantage  in  warfare  of  a  Damascus 
blade  in  a  skilled  hand  over  a  cleaver  wielded  by  a  boor. 

He  pronounced  the  eulogy  over  the  remains  of  the  dead 
Broderick,  and  the  state  was  melted  to  tears ;  he  made  a  speech 
in  New  York  City  in  that  portentous  late  autumn  of  1860 
and  set  the  hearts  of  his  listeners  ablaze ;  he  heard  the  closing 
twenty  minutes  of  the  speech  of  Breckenridge  in  the  senate,  in 
justification  of  his  giving  up  his  place  as  a  senator  of  the  United 
States  and  joining  the  armies  that  had  been  marshaled  to  de- 
stroy the  Union,  and  at  its  close  at  once  took  the  floor,  and 
when  he  finished  the  brilliant  Breckenridge  as  a  masterful  de- 
bator  was  merely  a  memory.  He  was  the  close  friend  and 
adviser  of  President  Lincoln ;  he  raised  and  trained  a  regiment, 
Avas  sent  against  an  enemy  which  outnumbered  his  command 
four  to  one ;  the  reinforcements  promised  him  were  never  sent ; 
so  when  next  morning  the  battle  was  joined,  he,  standing,  as 
was  his  wont,  with  right  hand  in  the  breast  of  his  coat,  received 
a  volley,  at  the  same  instant  was  struck  by  four  bullets  in  his 
breast,  either  one  of  which  would  have  been  fatal. 

Edwa,rd  Dickinson  Baker  was  born  in  London.  His 
father  was  a  Quaker  teacher,  but  his  mother  was  the  sister  of 
Captain  Thomas  Dickinson,  who  fought  side  by  side  with  Col- 
lingwood  at  Trafalgar,  that  Collingwood  who  would  have 
divided  the  honors  of  that  great  deay  with  Nelson  had  not 
the  latter  died  just  as  the  thunders  of  battle  grew  still. 

Colonel  Baker  did  not  receive  school  advantages  in 
schools,  but  his  father  was  a  teacher,  and  looked  carefully  after 
his  education ;  and  gave  him  that  better  education,  in  some 
respects,  of  taking  him  to  all  famous  places  possible  and  fill- 
ing his  mind  with  their  stories  and  legends.  He  saw  the  pageant 
of  the  funeral  of  Lord  Nelson,  and  its  splendor  and  solemnity 
lingered  with  him  and  influenced  all  his  life.     . 

When  he  was  five  years  old  his  father  removed  to  Phil- 
adelphia, and  spent  ten  years  in  that  city  as  a  teacher. 

What  Baker  read  he  ever  afterward  knew.  He  did  not 
seem  to  have  any  conscious  effort  of  memory :  he  at  once  stored 
his  mind  and  it  was  there,  on  call,  ever  after. 


COLONEL  E.  D.  BAKER.  49 

He  early  developed  the  fact  that  he  was  a  natural  orator. 
He  studied  law  and  became  eminent  at  once.  The  Black  Hawk 
war  came  on.  He  fought  through  that  war ;  then  came  the 
Mexican  war,  and  then  again  he  enlisted.  He  was  only  n'ne- 
teen  vears  of  age  when  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of  Illinois. 
In  1835  he  removed  to  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  he  must 
have  been  rated  a  fine  lawyer  then,  for  among  his  partners  at 
different  times  were  Albert  D.  Bledsoe,  subsequently  assistant 
secretary  of  war  in  the  southern  Confederacy ;  Joseph  Hewitt, 
and  the  venerable  Judge  Stephen  P.  Logan,  whom  Illinois  peo- 
ple still  declare  was  the  greatest  lawyer  ever  known  in  the 
state.  He  had  among  his  contemporaries  Lincoln,  Douglas, 
McDougal,  Logan,  Trumball,  Stuart,  and  others  of  scarcely 
less  note. 

In  those  days  Colonel  Baker  used  to  write  a  good  deal 
of  poetry.  ]\Iuch  of  it  was  fine.  It  was  transposing  into 
rhyme  the  natural  rhythm  and  eloquence  in  his  soul. 

Colonel  Baker  was  in  Congress  when  the  Mexican  war 
broke  out,  and  he  hastened  from  Washington  to  his  home  in 
Illinois  and  quickly  raised  a  regiment  of  volunteers,  which  he 
led  to  the  Rio  Grande.  He  was  chosen  by  General  Taylor  as 
bearer  of  dispatches  to  the  war  department  and  proceeded  to 
\A'ashington. 

Congress  was  in  session  and  as  he  had  not  resigned  his 
seat  in  the  house,  he  availed  himself  of  his  privilege  as  a  mem- 
ber to  speak.  By  general  consent  one  of  the  most  important 
bills  relating  to  the  soldiers  was  made  a  special  order,  and  the 
chance  was  given  Colonel  Baker  to  discuss  it.  Having  brought 
no  civilian's  clothes  with  him,  he  spoke  in  his  military  uniform, 
and  so  rapidly  that  the  reporters  were  unable  to  make  a  good 
report.  It  made  a  most  profound  impression,  and  this  was 
accentuated  by  Colonel  Baker's  recitation  at  the  close  of  a  poem 
in  memory  of  his  comrades  who  had  died  in  the  unhealthy  camp 
on  the  Rio  Grande. 

We  give  one  verse  of  it,  because  of  its  style  and  because 
another  poem  in  the  same  measure  a  few  years  later  made  and 
^till  makes  a  profound  impression.     It  was  as  follows: 


50 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


"Where  rolls  the  rushing  Rio  Grande, 

Here  peacefully  they  sleep; 
Far  from  their  native  Northern  land, 

Far  from  the  friends  who  weep. 
No  rolling"  drum  disturbs  their  rest, 

Beneath  the  sandy  sod ; 
The  mould  lies  heavy  on  each  breast — 

The  spirit  is  with  God." 


He  immediately  after  resigned  his  seat  in  Congress,  to 
return  to  Mexico.  His  regiment  was  transferred  to  the  de- 
partment of  General  Scott,  and  although  he  missed  Buena 
Vista,  he  took  part  in  the  capture  of  Vera  Cruz  and  greatly 
distinguished  himself  at  Cerro  Gordo.  In  that  battle,  when 
General  Shields  was  struck  down  and  the  brigade  faltered  for 
want  of  a  leader.  Colonel  Baker  took  in  the  situation  at  once, 
and  shouting  to  his  regiment,  "Come  on !"  he  ordered  the 
whole  brigade  to  advance.  For  his  gallantry  and  skill,  Gen- 
eral Scott  continued  Colonel  Baker  in  command  of  the  bri- 
gade. 

When  the  fierce  debate  came  on  on  the  question  of  admit- 
ting California  to  statehood.  Colonel  Baker  was  in  Congress 
and  urged  its  admission.  When  in  reply  Venable  and  Toombs 
referred  to  Baker's  foreign  birth.  Baker  fiercely  replied,  and 
closed  with  these  fateful  words  : 

"If  the  time  should  come  when  disunion  rules  the  hour 
and  discord  is  to  reign  supreme,  I  shall  again  be  ready  to  give 
the  best  blood  in  my  veins  to  my  country's  cause." 

When  President  Taylor  died  he  was  still  in  Congress  and 
pronounced  a  most  beautiful  eulogy  on  the  dead  general  and 
president.  After  reviewing  his  career  from  a  captaincy  in  the 
war  with  Great  Britain  up  through  his  career  as  commander 
in  Mexico,  he  said  : 

"Mr.  Speaker,  the  character  upon  which  Death  has  just 
set  his  seal  is  filled  with  beautiful  and  impressive  contrasts : 
A  w^arrior,  he  loved  peace;  a  man  of  action,  he  sighed  for 
retirement.  Amid  the  events  which  crowned  him  with  fame,  he 
counseled  a  withdrawal  of  our  troops.  And  whether  at  the 
head  of  armies  or  in  the  chair  of  state,  he  appeared  as  utterlv 


COLONEL  E.  D.  BAKER.  51 

unconscious  of  his  great  renown  as  if  no  banners  had  dropped 
at  his  word,  or  as  if  no  gleam  of  glory  shone  through  his 
whitened  hair.". 

In  1852  Colonel  Baker,  with  his  entire  family,  migrated 
to  California  and  settled  in  San  Francisco. 

California  was  indeed  a  new  field  for  him.  He  had  seen 
stormy  political  times  in  Illinois ;  had  passed  through  many  a 
fierce  campaign  where  a  good  deal  that  was  brutal  was  exhib- 
ited. He  had  been  in  Congress  a  potent  advocate  of  the  ad- 
mission of  California,  but  he  did  not  know  that  from  the  hour 
of  its  admission,  the  preparations  for  a  secession  of  the  south 
had  been  going  on,  that  in  California  many  of  the  prominent 
men  from  the  old  South  were  in  the  movement 

Broderick,  by  his  magnetism  and  power,  was  fighting  his 
way;  when  he  won  his  party  divided,  and  by  the  "chivalry" 
wing  he  was  marked  as  an  enemy  and  put  down  for  slaughter 
when  the  time  should  be  ripe.  Baker,  as  the  most  conspicuous 
Republican,  repeatedly  canvassed  the  state. 

He  was  fiercely  assailed ;  with  every  assault  his  voice 
grew  louder  and  clearer,  his  fame  took  on  a  higher  and  higher 
stature.  His  answers  to  coarse  invective  were  clarion  calls  for 
enlightenment  and  all-embracing  freedom,  until  the  men  who 
"came  to  scoff  went  away  to  pray."  His  voice  was  a  clear  tenor 
and  when  in  full  volume  seemed  to  fill  all  space  with  music. 

The  modern  schools  have  extended  their  studies ;  the  world 
is  filled  with  modern  books,  with  the  result  that  the  graduates' 
learning  has  been  widened,  but  it  sometimes  lacks  thorough- 
ness. Four  score  years  ago  the  ancient  classics  were  insisted 
on  in  the  schools  until,  at  least  with  some  students,  they  were 
so  assimilated  that  they  were  part  of  their  lives  and  gave  color 
to  all  their  intellectual  efforts.     It  was  so  with  Col.  Baker. 

One  of  his  greatest  triumphs  was  in  the  mining  camp  of 
Goodyear's  Bar — high  up  on  the  Yuba  and  amid  some  of  the 
sublimest  of  California  mountains.  Here  were  six  hundred 
placer  miners,  and  very  few  women.  At  the  election  the  year 
before  Colonel  Baker  went  there  only  one  Republican  vote  was 
cast.    Baker  said  he  would  go  and  reinforce  that  voter. 

Standing  on  a  carpenter's  bench  in  front  of  a  saloon  he 


52 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


began  his  speech.  There  was  a  large  sprinkHng  of  Irishmen  in 
the  crowd.  The  whole  camp  was  present,  but  it  had  been  whis- 
pered around  and  it  was  understood  that  there  should  be  no 
applause. 

Baker  spoke  for  half  an  hour,  his  voice  being  the  only 
sound  heard.  But  that  was  the  year  when  the  anti-foreign 
Know  Nothing  party  was  in  full  force  in  California.  When 
Baker  reached  that  part  of  his  speech,  he  gave  a  word  painting 
of  Reilly's  Irish  regiment  in  battle  in  Mexico,  as  he  had  watched 
it.  When  at  the  very  climax  he  pointed  to  a  staff  from  which 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  had  been  lowered,  and  passing  from  the 
description  of  the  battle  scene  he  delivered  an  apostrophe  upon 
the  flag. 

The  crowd  had  grown  very  restless  under  the  enchantment 
of  his  eloquence,  and  as  he  paused  for  a  moment,  a  mighty  yell 
as  of  a  horde  of  wild  Indians  was  started,  and  still  yelling,  but. 
with  tears  running  down  their  cheeks,  a  rush  was  made  to  grasp 
and  bear  away  in  triumph  in  their  arms  the  speaker.  The 
bench  was  overthrown,  those  upon  it  were  pitched  headlong 
upon  the  heads  of  those  below,  but  no  one  was  hurt.  Then 
there  was  a  night  of  it. 

On  that  occasion  Baker  justified  what  Stanley  said  of  him 
in  his  funeral  eulogy  over  his  body — "How  irresistible  he  was 
when  he  deprived  men  of  their  reason  as  he  overwhelmed  them 
in  admiration  of  his  transcendant  genius." 

Colonel  Baker's  triumphs  at  the  bar — that  wonderful  old- 
day  California  bar — were,  if  possible,  greater  than  on  the  ros- 
trum. When  it  looked  as  though  Cora,  who  killed  Richardson, 
could  get  no  lawyer  to  defend  him,  so  fierce  was  public  opinion. 
Baker  went  to  his  defense,  and  in  his  argument  to  the  jury 
gave  his  reasons  in  these  words : 

"The  profession  to  which  we  belong  is,  of  all  others,  fear- 
less of  public  opinion.  It  has  ever  stood  up  against  the  tyranny 
of  monarchs  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  tyranny  of  public  opinion 
on  the  other. 

"And  if,  as  the  humblest  among  them,  it  became  me  to  in- 
stance myself,  I  may  say  with  a  bold  heart,  and  I  do  say  it 
with  a  bold  heart,  that  there  is  not  in  all  this  world  the  wretch 


COLONEL  E.  D.  BAKER.  53 

so  humble,  so  guilty,  so  despairing,  so  torn  with  avenging 
furies,  so  pursued  by  the  arm  of  the  law,  so  hunted  to  cities  of 
refuge,  so  fearful  of  life,  so  afraid  of  death — there  is  no  wretch 
so  steeped  in  all  the  agonies  of  vice  and  crime,  that  I  would 
not  have  a  heart  to  listen  to  his  cry  and  a  tongue  to  speak  in 
his  defense,  though  round  his  head  all  the  wrath  of  public 
opinion  should  gather  and  rage  and  roar  and  roll  as  the  ocean 
rolls  around  the  rock." 

AA'hen  California  celebrated  the  laying  of  the  first  Atlantic 
cable.  Baker  was  the  orator  in  San  Francisco.  His  oration 
was  illuminated  all  the  way  through  with  the  lightning  flashes 
of  his  genius  and  eloquence. 

No  finer  oration  was  ever  delivered  in  any  country  than 
was  Baker's,  no  finer  from  Demosthenes  down  to  Lincoln's 
Gettysburg  speech ;  no  more  enchanting  eloquence  was  ever 
listened  to. 

Baker  pronounced  the  funeral  eulogy  over  Broderick. 
Never  had  such  a  host  thronged  to  a  funeral  in  California. 
The  crowd  was  measured  by  acres.  Of  the  oration,  Edward 
Stanley  said : 

"I  have  read  no  effort  of  that  character,  called  out  by  such 
an  event,  so  admirable,  so  touching,  so  worthy  the  sweet  elo- 
quence of  Baker.     It  should  crown  him  with  immortality." 

Of  it  George  Wilkes  wrote : 

"At  the  foot  of  the  coffin  stood  the  priest,  at  its  head,  and 
so  he  could  gaze  fully  on  the  face  of  his  dead  friend,  stood  the 
fine  figure  of  the  orator.  *  *  '''  For  minutes  after  the 
vast"  throng  had  settled  itself  to  hear  his  words,  the  orator  did 
not  speak.  He  did  not  look  in  the  coffin — nay,  neither  to  the 
right  nor  left ;  but  the  gaze  of  his  fixed  eye  was  turned  within 
his  mind  and  the  tear  was  on  his  cheek.  Then,  when  the  silence 
was  most  intense,  his  tremulous  tones  rose  like  a  wail  and  with 
an  uninterrupted  stream  of  lofty,  burning  and  pathetic  words  he 
so  penetrated  and  possessed  the  hearts  of  the  sorrowing  multi- 
tude that  there  was  not  one  cheek  less  moist  than  his  own. 
When  he  had  finished  the  multitude  broke  into  an  agonized 
response  of  sobs." 

A  roug-h  man  who  was  there  told  me  that  when  Colonel 


54  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Baker  stretched  out  his  arms  over  the  casket  and  said :  "Men 
of  California,  the  man  whose  body  hes  before  you  was  your 
senator,"  every  hat  was  doffed  in  an  instant. 

In  February,  I860,  Colonel  Baker,  by  invitation  of  Ore- 
gon friends,  removed  to  that  state. 

At  that  time  the  state  was  solidly  Democratic  and  there 
were  many  great  Democrats  there  to  hold  the  state  in  line. 
Colonel  Baker  made  a  thorough  canvass,  speaking  in  every 
camp,  town,  and  city,  with  the  result  that  the  next  January  he 
was  elected  United  States  senator. 

On  his  way  to  Washington  he,  in  San  Francisco,  made  a 
speech  that  fairly  electrified  that  city  and  the  whole  state. 
In  New  York  he  made  a  marvelous  speech.  His  most  notec 
speeches  in  Washington  were  first,  his  reply  to  Senator  Judal 
P.  Benjamin,  then  to  Senator  Breckenridge.  Those  speeches' 
must  be  read  in  their  entirety  to  be  fully  appreciated. 

On  the  forenoon  of  that  day  of  the  Breckenridge  speech. 
Colonel  Baker  had  been  out  drilling  his  regiment.  He  went 
t(^  the  capitol,  lay  down  on  a  lounge  in  a  cloak  room,  and  fell 
asleep.  Sumner  and  a  few  others  thought  that  while  Baker 
could  prepare  a  fine  speech  and  deliver  it  splendidly,  he  could 
not  speak  impromptu.  A  senator  woke  him,  explained  that 
Breckenridge  was  making  a  fearful  speech,  and  asked  him  if 
he  would  reply  to  it. 

He  promptly  consented,  arose  and  entered  the  senate 
chamber  in  his  uniform.  He  carried  the  senate  and  the  gal- 
leries by  storm.  W^hen,  near  the  close,  he  referred  to  the 
sneering  c[uestion  of  Breckenridge,  asking  where  men  could  be 
found  to  go  to  the  subjugation  of  the  south,  after  saying 
what  the  states  would  do,  Baker  said :  "The  most  peaceable 
man  in  this  body  may  stamp  his  foot  upon  this  senate  chamber 
floor,  as  of  old  a  warrior  and  a  senator  did,  and  from  that 
single  tramp  will  spring  forth  the  armed  legions."  Just  then 
the  scabbard  of  his  sword  struck  the  floor,  ringing  through 
the  hall,  and  a  mighty  thrill  struck  the  listeners. 

Colonel  Baker,  from  the  old  Illinois  days,  had  been  one 
of  the  most  trusted  of  Lincoln's  friends.  AA'hen  the  first  inaug- 
uration of  President  Lincoln  came,  it  was  Colonel  Baker  who 


COLONEL  E.  D.  BAKER.  55 

introduced  him  to  the  throng  that  had  gathered  to  the  inaugural 
ceremonies. 

After  General  McClellan  had  been  appointed  to  the  su- 
preme comand  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  President  Lincoln 
sent  Baker  with  an  important  message  to  McClellan.  The 
men  met  and  measured  each  other,  and  a  few  days  later  Colonel 
Baker  said  to  a  friend :  "I  am  going  to  take  my  command  into 
one  battle  to  show  that  I  am  not  afraid.  If  I  live  through  it,  I 
will  then  resign,  for  things  do  not  suit  me. 

He  was  sent  to  Balls  Blufif.  The  next  morning  he  was 
killed ;  the  reinforcements  promised  him  were  never  sent,  and 
so  soon  it  was  known  that  he  was  dead,  his  command  was 
withdrawn.  On  his  person  was  found  a  major-general's  com- 
mission signed  by  President  Lincoln.  Of  his  death  John  Hay 
wrote : 

"Edward  Dickinson  Baker  was  promoted  by  one  grand 
brevet  of  the  God  of  Battles,  above  the  acclaim  of  the  field, 
above  the  applause  of  the  world,  to  the  Heaven  of  the  martyr 
and  the  hero." 

There  was  a  public  funeral  in  Washington.  It  would 
have  been  in  the  White  House  except  for  repairs  going  on. 

Splendid  eulogies  were  pronounced  in  both  houses  of  Con- 
gress. Even  Senator  Sumner  made  a  touching  address,  clos- 
ing with  the  words:  "Call  him.  if  you  please,  the  Prince 
Rupert  of  battle :  he  was  also  the  Prince  Rupert  of  debate." 

But  the  great  speech  was  by  his  old  time  Illinois  friend. 
Senator  McDougall  of  California.  The  historian  says :  "The 
surprise,  the  thrill  of  the  occasion  was  the  speech  of  Mr.  Mc- 
Dougall of  California.' 

There  were  funeral  services  in  many  places  in  California 
and  Oregon.  Edward  Stanley  was  the  orator  in  San  Francisco, 
Starr  King  also  made  a  most  touching  address.  The  whole 
coast  was  in  mourning. 

The  soul  of  Colonel  Baker  went  out  from  a  l)attle-field 
nearly  half  a  century  ago,  but  the  splendor  of  his  genius  and 
patriotism  still  lingers  over  this  west,  and  the  echoes  of  the 
music  of  his  voice,  blending  with  the  murmur  of  winds  and 
streams,  give  a  softer  rhythm  to  both. 


DARIUS  OGDEN  MILLS. 

DARIUS  OGDEN  MILLS  was  a  financier  of  the  most 
perfect  type.  He  was  a  forty-niner,  I  believe,  and  had 
a  Httle  money  when  he  reached  San  Francisco.  He 
went  to  CaHfornia  with  the  idea  that  as  California  was  a  land 
of  gold,  it  was  every  man's  duty  to  get  as  much  of  that  gold 
as  he  honestly  could.  We  say  honestly  could,  for  Mr.  ]\Iills 
was  an  honest  man,  often  a  coldly  honest  man. 

Reaching  San  Francisco,  his  eyes  turned  naturally  to  such 
commercial  and  financial  news  as  was  then  available.  South- 
ern California  mines — mines  south  of  the  San  Francisco  paral- 
lel— were  sending  up  much  gold,  and  he  went  to  them, 
bringing  up,  I  think,  at  or  near  San  Andreas.  He  probably 
brought  with  him  a  stock  of  miners'  goods  and  opened  a  little 
store,  but  of  this  I  am  not  sure.  When  I  first  heard  of  him 
it  was  as  a  gold  dust  buyer  and  banker.  Gold  is  worth  $20.67 
per  ounce,  when  pure,  but  gold  dust  is  not  quite  pure,  and 
ordinary  California  dust  generally  sold  at  from  $16.50  to  $18 
per  ounce  when  unalloyed ;  on  the  east  side  of  the  Sierra,  it  was 
alloyed  with  silver  and  brought  from  $11  to  $13  per  ounce. 

I  believe  that  buyers  expected  to  clear  about  $2  per  ounce, 
and  when  two  or  three  hundred  miners  came  in  on  Saturday 
night  or  Sunday  morning  with  the  dust  they  had  mined  the  pre- 
vious week,  from  three  ounces  to  thirty  and  forty  ounces  each, 
the  man  who  purchased  the  dust  was  doing  fairly  well. 

When  the  cream  of  the  placers  was  skimmed  Mr.  Mills  re- 
moved to  Sacramento  and  opened  a  bank,  continuing  the  pur- 
chase of  gold  dust.  The  stages  and  pack  animals  brought  it  in 
from  all  sections  of  the  state  from  Siskiyou  to  Mariposa. 

~My.  Mills  cjuickly  made  a  state-wide  reputation  as  a  far- 
sighted  business  man  and  safe  and  high-minded  banker. 

Many  people  have  wondered  that  the  big  four  who  built 
the  old  Central  Pacific  railroad  did  not  enlist  and  include  D.  O. 
Mills. 

I  know  nothing  of  the  facts,  but  think  I  understand  per- 


DARIUS  OGDEN  MILLS.  57 

fectly  why  such  a  thing  would  have  been  impossible  at  the  time. 

Careful  business  men  looked  upon  the  scheme  of  building 
a  railroad  over  the  Sierra  as  impossible,  and  if  possible  utterly 
impractical,  for  what  was  there  beyond  but  the  desert? 

It  seemed  that  way  to  Huntington  and  Hopkins,  but  they 
did  have  a  hope  of  building  to  Dutch  Flat,  then  by  connecting 
with  their  toll  road  to  Truckee,  to  make  a  fortune. 

With  Stanford  it  was  different.  Stanford,  when  young, 
never  discounted  native  land,  nor  the  possibilities  that  might 
quickly  materialize  into  accomplished  facts. 

When  W.  C.  Ralston  was  organizing  the  California  bank 
he  wanted  a  president  that  would  give  dignity  and  strength 
and  character  to  the  new  institution,  and  he  chose  Mr.  Mills, 
who  accepted  the  place.  It  had  become  a  commanding  financial 
institution,  when  Mr.  Sharon  wired  from  Virginia  City  that 
the  thing  the  Comstock  needed  was  a  real  bank,  and  Ralston 
wired  him  back  to  "come  to  San  Francisco  and  we  will  talk  it 
over." 

The  result  was  the  establishment  of  the  branch  bank  in 
Virginia  City,  with  Sharon  in  charge. 

There  had  been  some  petty  banks  that  had  loaned  their 
money  at  five  per  cent  per  month,  which  the  borrowers  could 
not  pay.  Their  property  could  not  be  realized  on,  the  banks  had 
no  more  money  to  loan — it  was  nearly  a  tie  up  and  lockout  all 
around. 

Sharon  took  up  the  indebtedness,  with  liens  on  mines  and 
mills  as  security,  reduced  interest  to  one  per  cent  per  month, 
established  regular  pay  days  at  the  mines  and  generally  re- 
moved the  weights  that  had  paralyzed  effort  and  made  labor 
impotent.  Dealing  in  stocks  was  changed  from  feet  to  shares, 
and  he  dealt  in  them  himself. 

What  Webster  said  of  Hamilton  might  have  been  said  of 
W'illiam  Sharon  at  that  time : 

"He  smote  the  rock  of  the  national  resources,  and  abund- 
ant streams  of  revenue  burst  forth.  He  touched  the  corpse  of 
public  credit  and  it  sprang  upon  its  feet." 

But  within  a  year  Sharon  had  loaned  out  of  the  bank's 

5 


58  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

money  $700,000,  with  nothing  behind  it  but  some  interests  in 
mills  and  mines. 

People  cannot  comprehend  it  now,  but  that  was  a  vast 
sum  at  that  time.  It  seemed  much  greater  than  $17,000,000 
does  now. 

When  Mr.  Mills  as  a  stockholder  and  director  of  the 
parent  bank  saw  the  figures,  he  was  shocked.  He  insisted  that 
a  meeting  of  the  directors  be  called  and  Sharon  sent  for.  It 
was  done,  and  in  a  fiery  speech  he  reviewed  the  figures  and 
demanded  llat  the  Comstock  business  should  be  closed  up,  the 
branch  bank  be  called  in,  the  losses  relegated  to  the  column  of 
losses,  and  that  thenceforth  the  bank  should  pursue  a  legiti- 
mate banking  business. 

In  reply  Sharon  stated  the  situation  as  it  appeared  to  him, 
he  being  on  the  ground  and  watching  everything;  said  the 
property  he  had  acquired  was  live  property  and  declaring  that 
if  given  a  few  more  months'  time  he  would  not  only  clear  up 
everything,  but  make  the  parent  bank  more  money  than  its 
original  capital. 

Ralston  sided  with  Sharon  and  carried  a  majority  of  the 
directors  to  his  side.  As  a  last  fling,  Mills  pointed  out  the  old 
quartz  mills  that  Sharon  had  purchased  and  declared  that  they 
were  fit  only  for  the  scrap  pile.  To  this  Sharon  replied  that 
he  had  made  a  little  money  legitimately  outside  the  bank  and 
would  take  the  mills  at  what  they  had  cost  the  bank. 

This  w^as  agreed  to.  Ralston  joined  with  Sharon,  and 
the  Union  Milling  company  was  organized.  It  was  said  that 
it  made  money  sometimes  when  the  mines  did  not,  for  the 
charge  of  miling  was  $12  per  ton,  and  a  good  deal  of  ore 
worked  did  not  yield  much  in  excess  of  that  amount.  To  mill 
a  ton  of  $9  and  a  ton  of  $18  ore  together  cost  $24,  and  there 
was  not  much  profit  left. 

Mr.  Sharon  began  to  swiftly  vindicate  himself,  and  Mr. 
Alills  began  to  have  faith  in  his  discernment  and  sometimes 
bought  stocks  himself.  When  the  Belcher  and  Crown  Point 
bonanzas  were  uncovered  all  concerned  made  great  fortunes, 
which  the  Con.-Cal.  Bonanza  added.  But  Ralston,  the  most 
public-spirited  man  in  the  world,  as  the  money  came  in.  began 


DARIUS  OGDEN  MILLS.  59 

to  launch  out.  He  opened  New  Montgomery  street,  began  the 
building  of  the  Palace  hotel,  and  spread  out  in  a  hundred  direc- 
tions, and  reduced  the  deposits  in  the  bank  down  so  low  that 
it  was  forced  to  close  its  doors.  When,  at  a  meeting  of  the 
directors,  the  real  facts  were  made  clear.  Mills  arose,  and  going 
to  Ralston's  private  office,  demanded  his  resignation  as  presi- 
dent. 

Ralston  turned  to  his  desk,  wrote  the  resignation,  handed 
it  to  Mills,  arose,  put  on  his  hat,  walked  to  north  beach,  and 
sprang  into  the  bay. 

Many  men  have  blamed  Mills  for  that  act.  Certain  it  is 
that  had  the  case  been  reversed,  had  Mills  made  the  failure, 
Ralston  would  have  gone  to  him,  put  his  arm  around  him  and 
said :  "Brace  up.  Mills ;  you  have  made  a  mistake,  but  who  of 
us  does  not  make  mistakes ;  brace  up,  we  will  pull  through  yet." 

But  D.  O.  Mills  could  not  do  that.  He  was  absolutely 
honest ;  with  him  such  an  act  would  have  looked  like  condoning 
a  crime. 

Mills  lived  several  years  at  the  Palace  hotel;  he  never 
built  a  fine  home  in  the  west.  In  private  he  was  most  courteous 
and  agreeable  to  meet. 

He  built  one  great  office  building  in  San  Francisco ;  he  was 
the  chief  factor  in  the  building  of  the  Virginia  and  Truckee 
railroad,  and  in  the  Palisade  and  Eureka  road,  and  must  have 
gotten  his  money  back  many  times  from  both  roads.  He 
financed  the  Carson  and  Colorado  road.  He  removed  to  New 
York  City  about  thirty-two  or  thirty-three  years  ago. 

His  building  of  the  Mills  hotels  in  New  York  was  charac- 
teristic of  the  man.  He  never  believed  much  in  direct  charity, 
but  rather  in  that  indirect  charity  which  was  a  help  to  honest 
effort.  He  figured  that  if  he  could  reduce  the  living  expenses 
of  a  laboring  man  or  woman  one-half,  he  or  she  would  have  an 
increased  incentive  to  work  and  put  by  the  surplus  earnings. 
So  he  built  the  hotels,  and  by  them  gave  to  working  men  and 
women  more  sanitary  accommodations  and  better  food  than 
thev  had  been  accustomed  to  at  one-half  or  one-third  what  they 
had  been  paying.  But  so  exact  had  been  his  calculations  and 
so  thorough  his  knowledge  of  the  cost  of  things,  that  the  struc- 


60  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

tures  from  the  start  paid  better  interest  on  their  cost  than 
many  of  the  royal  sky-scrapers  near. 

He  would  not  advance  money  on  an  undeveloped  mine, 
for  no  matter  what  the  promise  of  it  was.  there  was  an  element 
of  chance  connected  with  it,  and  with  him  business  was  an  exact 
science,  around  which  no  visible  evidence  of  chance  lingered, 
and  so  as  an  exact  business  man  he  was  infallible. 

So  he  went  on  increasing  his  fortune,  but  he  never  per- 
mitted his  wealth  to  cause  his  nature  to  harden  or  his  native 
instincts  to  wane.  He  was  always  a  fond  husband  and  father 
and  no  matter  how  strict  were  his  dealings  with  men,  every- 
thing he  had  was  always  for  his  loved  ones.  Their  lives  were 
bound  up  in  his  and  when  he  gave  them  aught,  it  was  as 
though  he  was  making  a  present  to  himself. 

He  who  was  late  ambassador  to  the  court  of  St.  James 
married  his  daughter.  Home  on  leave  of  absence,  three  years 
ago.  they  entertained  the  royal  Connaught  and  his  family. 

We  suspect  that  the  boys  who  were  on  the  Comstock 
thirty-five  years  ago  and  who  are  still  on  this  side,  as  they  read 
the  account  said :  'Here's  to  you,  Duke  and  Whitelaw  I  We 
bear  no  malice  if  we  did  put  up  some  of  that  money  which 
makes  the  entertainment.  Shucks  to  a  man  who.  if  he  has  a 
thing  to  do  does  not  do  it  gallantly!" 

But  we  would  not  do  Mr.  Reid  injustice.  He  was  an 
able  editor  and  had  more  money  in  his  own  right  than  any 
editor  ought  to  have. 

He  took  the  editorship  of  the  Tribune  when  the  pen  fell 
from  the  hand  of  Horace  Greeley,  and  held  the  paper  up  to  a 
standard  which  in  such  a  place  as  New  York  City  with  the 
country  behind  it  could  not  help  but  make  him  rich. 

But  it  was  a  proud  day  for  him  when  he  met  Miss  ^lills. 

D.  O.  Mills  died  in  1910  or  1911.  if  I  remember  correctly, 
died  near  where  he  made  his  first  stake,  and  no  more  perfect 
business  man  ever  made  a  high  name  than  he. 


ED.  C.  MARSHALL. 

HE  WAS  of  the  old  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Marshall 
stock,  the  brother  of  the  famous  Tom  Marshall  of 
Kentucky.  He  was  six  feet  two  inches,  I  think,  in 
height,  straight  as  he  was  tall ;  a  leonine  head  on  scjuare  shoul- 
ders, dark  gray  eyes,  and  hair  and  whiskers  inclined  to  auburn; 
a  natural  orator  and  the  most  versatile  genius  that  ever  took 
an  audience  captive  and  swayed  it  as  he  willed.  I  had  the 
honor  to  know  him  well.  He  and  one  very  dear  to  me  crossed 
the  plains  by  the  southern  route  in  '49,  and  we  lived  in  the 
same  town  many  years.  On  that  route  across  the  continent, 
the  company  was  chased  for  seven  days  by  Apaches. 

One  mid-day  they  made  camp  under  a  high  reef  of  rocks 
to  take  their  luncheon. 

Marshall  ate  his  hardtack  and  drank  his  coffee,  and  then 
strolled  leisurely  up  to  the  top  of  this  reef.  Suddenly  a  hun- 
dred shots  from  the  savages  smote  the  reef.  Marshall,  with- 
out hurrying  his  pace,  came  down,  but  when  he  reached  a  safe 
place  in  camp  he  burst  out  into  a  torrent  of  expletives,  winding 
up  with  the  words  :  "If  there  is  any  gentleman  in  this  com- 
pany who  has  the  conceit  to  believe  that  an  Apache  can't  shoot, 
let  him  go  up  on  those  rocks  for  a  few  minutes."  But  none  of 
them  seemed  to  have  any  doubts. 

On  the  stump  he  was  all  encompassing  in  his  fun,  his 
pathos  and  wonderful  eloquence.  In  a  speech  one  night  I 
heard  him  describe  the  famous  Democratic  convention  held  in 
the  Baptist  Church  in  Sacramento  in  1854.     He  said: 

"Knowing  it  was  in  the  house  of  God,  I  supposed,  of 
course,  that  peace  would  reign  through  all  the  deliberations. 
Sn  I  went  to  look  on  and  listen.  I  remained  until  members 
began  to  draw  revolvers  and  bowie  knives ;  then,  the  day  being 
warm  and  the  air  in  the  hall  close,  I  went  outside. 

I  took  a  seat  on  the  shady  side  of  a  lumber  pile.  The 
^liadv  side  was  the  one  furthest  from  the  clnuxh. 


62  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Soon  a  gentleman  came  by.  He  evidently  had  forgotten 
some  important  business,  for  he  was  running. 

Evidently,  too,  he  was  in  too  much  of  a  hurry  to  come  out 
of  the  door,  for  he  had  a  window  sash  around  his  neck." 

He  closed  with  these  words :  "Talk  about  corruption ! 
Why,  gentlemen,  the  man  in  the  moon  held  his  nose  as  he 
passed  over  Sacramento  that  night." 

He  was  a  candidate  for  the  senate  in  1854.  Governor 
Weller  had  issued  an  address  in  which  he  overdid  the  business 
of  praising  the  Irish  and  Germans,  who  had  so  gallantly  fought 
for  their  adopted  country  in  the  Mexican  war.  Marshall  made 
a  speech  a  few  e\-enings  later.  I  recall  from  memory  a  para- 
graph of  that  speech  as  follows :  "Old  man  Weller  has  told 
you  of  the  devoted  patriotism  of  the  Irish  and  German  soldiers 
that  went,  out  of  love  for  their  adopted  country,  to  help  fight 
her  battles  on  foreign  soil.  Don't  you  believe  it.  fellow  citizens. 
\\"eller  does  not  know.  I  do.  They  fought  all  right  enough, 
but  they  went  there  just  as  I  did.  for  I  was  there.  I  have  a 
long  scar  to  identify  myself  that  I  got  there.  I  was  young, 
'jomewhat  foolish.  I  liked  adventure.  I  heard  there  was  going 
.0  be  a  war,  and  all  my  life  I  had  been  wondering  how  it  would 
eem  to  be  in  a  real  battle,  so  I  went.  I  found  out ;  but  let  me 
•  ell  you  something.  The  man  who  in  that  company,  under  that 
flag,  with  drums  rolling,  bugles  calling,  and  the  big  guns  be- 
ginning to  roar ;  the  man  who  at  that  place  would  not  have 
been  eager  to  take  a  hand,  would  not  have  been  fit  to  have  had 
old  Fritz  for  a  grandfather  or  a  genuine  Irish  lady  for  a 
mother." 

John  Bigler  was  candidate  for  Governor  and  Alarshall 
went  over  the  state  debating  the  issues  with  him.  Governor 
Bigler  was  a  short  and  very  corpulent  man.  They  made  a  tour 
of  the  mountain  camps,  when  on  their  return  to  the  valley 
they  held  a  meeting  at  Marysville.  In  the  course  of  his  speech 
Marshall  said :  "You  would  not  think  it.  but  my  friend  Bigler 
is  the  toughest  formation  that  ever  an  opponent  tried  to  debate 
solemn,  political  issues  with.  I  never  realized  his  charm  until 
one  morning  in  a  mining  camp.  I  arose  at  dawn  and  started 
out  for  a  walk.     I  found  the  governor  out  ahead  of  me.     He 


ED.  C.  MARSHALL.  63 

was  going'  from  store  to  store.  In  every  place  he  was  struck 
by  the  wonderful  quality  of  goods  the  merchant  exposed  for 
sale.  He  had  seen  nothing  of  their  quality,  in  any  of  the 
stores  in  the  lower  cities.  Then,  the  eulogy  over,  he  was  most 
glad  to  find  such  goods,  for  he  wanted  to  purchase  a  pair  of 
trousers,  and  he  knew  there  was  not  a  pair  of  pantaloons  in 
all  the  mountains  of  California  that  would  come  within  six- 
teen inches  of  going  around  him." 

He  had  been  in  Congress  the  previous  year.  I  recall  a 
few  words  of  a  speech  he  made  recounting  his  experience.  It 
ran  like  this :  "You  find  queer  old  chaps  in  Congress.  Hair 
thin  on  the  tops  of  their  heads;  their  calves  all  shrunken;  they 
do  not  crack  a  joke  once  a  month,  but  when  they  do,  it  is  a 
rib  roaster.  You  know  I  told  you  if  I  got  to  Congress  I  would 
introduce  a  Pacific  railroad  bill  that  would  make  them  sit  up 
and  take  notice.  Well,  I  fixed  the  bill  and  introduced  it,  and 
after  a  while,  was  given  a  chance  to  discuss  it.  I  was  getting 
along  fine.  My  inner  consciousness  was  telegraphing  to  my 
brain  that  this  was  bound  to  be  a  winner,  when  an  old  chap 
with  a  cracked  voice  interrupted  with  the  words,  "Mr.  Speaker, 
may  I  ask  the  gentleman  where  he  is  going  to  locate  his  road?" 

"Now,"  continued  Marshall,  "I  am  no  civil  engineer;  if 
I  build  the  intellectual  part  of  a  road,  is  not  that  enough  for 
one  man  to  do?  Why  require  the  purely  material  part  and 
demand  of  me  my  grades  and  curves  as  though  I  were  a 
county  surveyor?" 

All  that  summer  Marshall  made  his  campaign,  insisting 
that  this  scramble  for  office  was  disgraceful,  that  the  office 
should  seek  the  man.  But  when  the  legislature  met,  Marshall 
was  in  full  evidence  on  the  streets  of  Sacramento.  A  friend 
approached  him  and  said :  "Mr.  Marshall,  I  thought  it  was 
your  theory  that  the  office  should  seek  the  man?" 

"Certainly  it  is,"  was  the  quick  reply,  'but  suppose  the 
office  is  out  looking  for  him,  is  it  anything  more  than  common 
courtesy  for  him  to  be  where  he  can  be  found?" 

When  the  great  war  became  imminent,  Marshall  drifted 
back  to  Kentucky.  After  the  war  he  was  a  candidate  for 
Congress  against  Hon.  Luke  Blackburn.     They  went  over  the 


64  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

state  in  joint  debate.  Marshall  sought  to  get  Blackburn  to 
discuss  the  tariff  question  with  him.  Finally  Blackburn  did 
discuss  it  for  a  few  minutes  in  glittering  generalities.  In  reply 
^larshall  said :  "You  heard  my  friend  on  the  tariff.  He 
reminded  me  of  a  beautiful  swan  sailing  on  a  placid  lake;  her 
plumage  stainless  as  snow ;  singing  as  she  sails,  absolutely 
serene  in  her  self-consciousness,  exquisite  in  her  song,  drawing 
about  half  an  inch  of  water  and  totally  unconscious  of  the  un- 
fathomable depths  beneath  her." 

Later  in  life  he  returned  to  California  and  made  the  most 
terrible  arraignment  of  a  lordly  culprit  in  a  San  Francisco 
court  ever  heard  in  that  state.  But  when  his  emotions  were 
awakened  and  the  theme  was  worthy  of  him,  it  was  an  enchant- 
ment to  listen  to  him.    Hear  this  of  the  California  pioneers  : 

"They  were  able  to  win  the  greatest  of  all  triumphs,  the 
victory  over  themselves ;  they  were  able  to  preserve  order  with- 
out law;  to  maintain  justice  without  tribunals;  their  possession 
of  absolute  independence  never  degenerated  into  selfishness, 
nor  the  almost  savage  liberty  of  a  country  without  law.  into 
cruelty  or  oppression. 

"Shall  we,  who,  in  conscious  fulfillment  of  a  great  mis- 
sion, brought  method  out  of  chaos,  and  cultivated  the  flowers 
of  justice  and  safety  in  the  soil  of  anarchy — yield  to  lesser  dan- 
gers, and  baser  temptations?  Shall  we  soil  the  splendor  of 
the  past?" 


COLLIS  P.   HUNTINGTON. 

MASSIVE  and  strong,  compelling  in  all  his  ways,  C.  P. 
Huntington  filled  exactly  the  world's  idea  of  a  mas- 
terful man  of  afifairs.  Had  he  been  trained  a 
soldier  and  been  given  a  command,  he  would  not  have  de- 
pended upon  tactics  or  grand  strategy,  but  upon  force.  He 
would  never  have  fought  until  he  believed  he  had  the  heaviest 
battalions,  and  then  would  have  struck  directly  at  the  enemy's 
center,  and  his  order  would  have  been  to  "slay  and  slay  and 
slay"  until  all  opposition  was  crushed.  From  such  points  in 
his  history,  as  they  appeared  from  time  to  time,  the  late  Mark 
Hanna  was  nearer  his  type  of  man  than  any  public  man  that 
I  can  recall. 

Still  he  was  a  most  courteous  and  companionable  man 
to  those  whom  he  held  as  friends,  and,  deep  down,  he  was  a 
generous  man  and  most  appreciative  of  those  who  had  favored 
him. 

After  a  close  friendship  of  nearly  forty  years  he  broke 
with  Leland  Stanford  because  he  persisted  in  permitting  the 
sycophants  around  him  to  elect  him  United  States  Senator, 
when  A.  A.  Sargent  w^anted  the  place.  He  did  so  because  as 
a  just  man  he  felt  that  it  was  his  duty  and  Stanford's  duty 
to  serve  Sargent  in  every  honorable  way,  in  gratitude  for  the 
inestimable  services  performed  without  reward  in  getting  the 
charter  for  their  railroad,  the  old  Central  Pacific,  through  Con- 
gress, loaded  as  it  was  with  subsidies. 

That  he  was  a  captain  among  great  financiers,  he  abund- 
antly established  in  his  more  than  thirty  years'  wrestle  with 
the  strongest  of  them.  His  one  weakness  in  that  regard  was 
the  strength  of  the  late  E.  H.  Harriman.  If  he  once  made  up 
his  nn'nd,  he  would  not  change  it.  If  he  once  fixed  his  eyes 
upon  a  golden  cloud,  he  noted  nothing  at  his  feet,  though 
what  he  stumbled  over  might  be  real  gold,  while  the  cloud  was 
but  an  illusion  made  b\  i)assing  sunbeams.  His  heart  was 
fixed  on  California ;  he  held  it  as  holding  more  treasures,  treas- 


66  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

ures  in  soil,  in  mines,  in  scenery,  in  climate,  than  any  other 
state,  hut  when  he  came  to  the  dividing  line  where  the  glori- 
fied, wooded  Sierra,  having  exhausted  all  the  moisture  that 
came  in  from  the  sea,  broke  down  into  the  desert  to  the  east; 
he  said  to  himself:  "All  this  is  but  as  the  barren  ocean  at 
best ;  if  we  build  a  railroad  across  it,  the  road  will  be  but  as  a 
bridge,  our  profits  must  come  from  California  and  from  where 
beyond  the  mountains  the  green  fields  are  once  more  found." 
And  notwithstanding  the  expansion  that  he  saw  in,  and  the 
profits  he  realized  from,  that  desert,  he  never  changed  his 
stubborn  mind.  Thus  with  the  completion  of  the  road  to  Prom- 
ontory, his  idea  was  to  commercially  fortify  San  Francisco, 
and  later  Los  Angeles  and  San  Diego,  to  keep  all  opposition 
roads  from  coming  in  from  any  direction ;  his  thought  being 
to  build  up  San  Francisco  and  so  far  as  possible,  California, 
and  to  milk  the  desert  for  "all  that  the  traffic  would  bear." 

So  soon  as  ppssible  for  him  he  went  east  and  inaugurated 
the  building  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  road,  his  dream  evi- 
dently being  to  complete,  link  by  link,  his  roads,  to  build  a 
great  new  capital  for  commerce  at  Newport  News  and  depend 
upon  the  through  traffic  for  his  ultimate  great  fortune.  He 
fought  it  out  on  that  line  as  long  as  he  lived.  And  he  dom- 
inated the  other  three  chief  associates  with  him,  and  that  policy 
ruled  to  the  last. 

We  cannot  help  but  think  that  had  Mr.  Harriman  been  in 
his  place,  when  the  results  from  the  Comstock.  the  other  great 
mines  of  the  desert,  and  the  possibilities  of  the  soil  when 
touched  by  water,  been  shown  him ;  with  a  quick  intuition  he 
would  have  said  to  himself:  "Why,  of  course,  vast  treasures 
are  at  my  feet,  else  nature  would  not  have  so  carefully  guarded 
them  through  the  centuries,  by  this  forbidding  desolation.  It 
is  for  me  to  make  them  available  through  a  transportation  sys- 
tem that  will  give  the  men  who  toil  with  brawn  and  brain  a 
chance."  And  he  would  have  fixed  his  capitals  at  San  Fran- 
cisco, at  Los  Angeles,  at  Portland  and  Seattle,  not  to  keep 
others  out — for  he  would  have  known  that  would  be  impos- 
sible, but  to  have  covered  the  countrv  that  he  wanted  and  from 


COLLIS  P.  HUNTINGTON.  67 

which  he  would  have  been  sure  of  drawing  sufficient  rewards. 

And  when  the  mortgages  on  the  old  through  road  fell  due, 
instead  of  its  being  but  a  rusty  line  of  steel  and  a  right-of-way, 
it  would  have  been  double-tracked  from  Omaha  and  Kansas 
City  to  San  Francisco  and  Portland,  so  perfect  in  condition  and 
equipment  that  passengers  going  east  or  west  would  have  no 
thought  of  taking  any  other  line,  and  he  would  have  settled 
the  mortgages  with  his  individual  check. 

Mr.  Huntington  was  a  merchant  in  Sacramento  when  the 
Comstock  was  discovered.  He,  with  his  business  partner, 
Mark  Hopkins,  in  consultation  with  Leland  Stanford,  Charles 
Crocker  and  his  brother,  Judge  Crocker,  after  much  consid- 
eration, determined  to  build  a  toll  road  from  Dutch  Flat  over 
the  Sierra  to  a  terminal  on  Truckee  river,  got  their  charter  and 
began  work.  This  was  in  1859.  I  have  explained  how  from 
that  the  old  Central  Pacific  Railroad  was  projected  and  carried 
to  completion. 

But  let  no  one  conclude  that  the  building  of  that  road  was 
not  a  great  achievement.  Mountains  were  not  torn  down 
then  as  they  now  are.  Dynamite  was  not  discovered  then  and 
nitro-glycerine  was  awfully  dangerous.  It  was  far  from  the 
base  of  railroad  supplies,  the  second-class  labor  of  California 
was  scarce  and  practically  worthless,  the  first-class  laborers 
could  not  be  obtained ;  before  the  work  was  hardly  begun,  a 
great  war  was  threatening  the  very  life  of  the  nation  and  fast 
destroying  its  credit,  and  behind  all  there  was  no  faith  in  the 
success  of  the  undertaking  in  any  financial  center  of  the  world. 
Then  there  was  a  mile  and  a  quarter  in  altitude  to  be  made  in 
ninety  miles  and  the  jealous  Sierra  piled  up  its  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  audacious  few  who  were  essaying  to  lead  the 
assault  up  its  rugged  side. 

Anyone  who  remembered  how  long  a  time  was  consumed 
in  boring  the  Hoosac  tunnel  will  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  work 
before  these  men.  Charlie  Crocker  was  the  executive  man  in 
the  field.  Mark  Hopkins  saw  to  the  accounts ;  Governor  Stan- 
ford wrote  an  optimistic  letter  now  and  then,  while  upon  Mr. 
Huntington  was  the  work  of  keeping  tlie  finances  always  in 


68  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

solid  form,  and  in  purchasing  rails,  rolling  stock,  etc.  Judge 
Crocker  was  too  ill  to  be  of  much  use,  and  died  before  the  work 
was  completed. 

Before  the  work  started,  elaborate  plans  for  a  railroad 
office  were  prepared.  They  were  shown  to  Mr.  Huntington; 
with  a  pencil  he  sketched  a  cheap  building,  one  story,  with  five 
or  six  rooms,  in  form  and  appearance  much  like  a  dilapidated 
barn,  and  said :  "Build  it  that  way.  That  will  do  for  us  until 
we  get  out  of  the  woods."    And  it  did. 

He  went  east  and  advertised  for  bids  for  a  huge  contract 
for  rails  and  rolling  stock.  One  bid,  the  lowest,  had  enclosed 
with  the  bid  a  separate  note  explaining  that  a  large  percentage 
would,  should  the  bid  be  accepted,  be  returned  to  him  person- 
ally as  his  commission.  He  accepted  the  bid,  but  returned  it 
with  a  request  that  it  be  made  over  less  the  commission,  that 
it  might  be  filed,  as  there  were  to  be  no  individual  commissions 
in  the  building  of  the  road. 

Mr.  Crocker  contracted  for  ten  thousand  Chinese  for 
graders,  tried  them  a  month,  then  informed  the  companies  to 
which  they  belonged  that  there  must  be  a  change ;  that  no  men 
could  work  on  the  food  they  were  restricted  to,  that  wheaten 
flour,  beef,  pork,  mutton  and  vegetables  must  be  substituted 
in  great  part  in  lieu  of  the  everlasting  rice.  This  was  done, 
and  in  another  month  they  became  an  effective  working  force. 

So  the  road  pushed  its  way  slowly  to  the  crest  of  the 
mountains ;  the  grade  down  the  eastern  slope  was  much  easier, 
and  when  the  desert  was  reached,  it  was  rushed  with  all  speed 
until  the  locomotives  touched  noses  at  Promontory. 

The  minds  of  the  chief  actors  had  grown  immensely  in 
performing  their  great  work.  They  had,  too,  apparently 
grown  in  their  acquisitiveness.  They  never  for  a  day  used  the 
road  as  a  common  carrier,  but  as  private  property.  They  did 
nothing  to  develop  the  country  through  which  the  road  passed, 
but  rather  to  exact  the  utmost  revenue  possible. 

W'hen  a  carload — ten  tons — of  ordinary  merchandise  cost 
$340  from  Chicago  to  Sacramento:  if  the  car  was  stopped  at 
Reno,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  east  of  Sacramento  and 
run  up  the  little  fifty-mile  road  from  Reno  to  the  Comstock. 


COLLIS  P.  HUNTINGTON.  69 

the  charge  there  was  $760.  The  through  freight  to  Sacra- 
mento and  the  local  freight  back  to  Reno  was  exacted.  When 
people  complained,  they  were  treated  as  enemies,  and  as  nearly 
as  possible  the  company  owned  the  legislature,  congressmen 
and  judges  of  California. 

The  same  company  pushed  the  road  from  Sacramento 
to  Oregon,  from  San  Francisco  to  Los  Angeles,  for  the  sub- 
sidies given  for  building  them,  and  finally  out  across  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico  to  eastern  connections.  It  nursed  all  its  ven- 
tures but  the  old  Central  Pacific ;  that  it  simply  milked  until 
when  the  payments  came  due  upon  it,  it  was  half  a  wreck. 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Huntington  had  grown  to  be  acknowl- 
edged as  one  of  the  foremost  financiers  in  the  nation,  and  the 
spectacle  he  presented  holding  up,  controlling  and  guarding  the 
mighty  enterprise  that  he  and  his  partners  had  established,  after 
all  his  first  associates  had  died  and  he  himself  was  an  old  man, 
was  grand.  His  brain  never  faltered,  his  energy  never  lost  its 
spring. 

His  iron  will  fought  all  obstacles — he  worked  in  royal 
harness  to  the  last,  in  truth  a  financial  and  industrial  king.  In 
the  forest  of  men  in  California  in  the  Argonaut  days  there 
was  one  lordly  oak.  As  that  first  forest  melted  away  and  a 
new  one  of  different  species  succeeded,  this  oak  still  stood ; 
warded  off  all  storms  that  were  hurtled  against  it ;  turned  aside 
the  damp  and  the  frost ;  waved  its  arms  in  the  face  of  the  hur- 
ricane; beat  back  decay;  healed  its  own  wounds;  sheltered  its 
own  eagles,  and  stood  erect  until  struck  and  shattered  in  a 
moment  by  the  thunderbolt. 

That  oak  was  C.  P.  Huntington ;  one  of  the  highest  types 
of  the  men  who  fought  back  the  savageries  of  the  west  coast ; 
blazed  the  trails  over  which  progress  could  advance,  smoothed 
the  paths  and  erected  signal  stations  to  point  the  way  for  civ- 
ih'zation  to  come  and  build  its  temples,  that  at  last  full  enlight- 
enment might  find  prepared  for  it  a  home. 


JUDGE  CHARLES  H.  BRYAN. 

WHEN  I  first  knew  him  he  was  a  young  man,  perhaps  j 
twent3'-seven  or  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  hand- 
some as  Adonis,  light-brown  hair,  blue  eyes,  the| 
complexion  of  a  carefully-housed  girl,  but  with  a  singularly 
expressive  and  strong  face,  a  firmly-knit  frame,  say  five  feet 
nine  inches  tall,  and  weighing  perhaps  one  hundred  and  sixty 
pounds.  A  marked  feature  was  his  voice.  Even  in  ordinary 
conversation  there  was  a  lyric  resonance  to  it,  with  cadences 
that  reminded  one  of  the  echoes  of  music  that,  sounding  out 
over  still  waters,  strikes  a  promontory  and  floats  back  partly 
in  music  and  partly  in  murmurs.  But  when  speaking  to  an  audi- 
ence, especially  if  the  occasion  or  the  theme  had  called  out  all 
his  power,  that  voice  took  on  organ  tones  and  held  men  spell- 
bound. 

In  those  days,  half  a  century  and  more  ago,  learned  men 
had  been  more  drilled  in  the  classics,  as  a  rule,  than  they  are 
at  present ;  men's  thoughts  seemed  to  be  different  from  what 
they  now  are ;  the  shadow  of  ancient  renown  was  beckoning 
them  on  toward  the  height  of  great  scholarship  and  toward 
a  sphere  where  the  language  is  as  pure  as  that  which  Cicero 
in  Rome  and  Demosthenes  in  Greece  framed  their  sentences 
from. 

Now  the  shadows  of  sky  scrapers,  and  the  stockboard  are 
upon  the  eyes  of  students ;  the  thought  is  not  to  climb  the 
heights  which  are  lighted  eternally  from  above;  but  rather  up 
those  other  heights  where  success,  often  bruised  and  scarred, 
and  befouled  and  stained  by  the  soil  on  which  it  camped  on  the 
trail,  is  found.  And  we  sometimes  think  it  can  be  detected  in 
the  voices  of  men.  They  seem  to  have  a  metallic  ring,  not  the 
old  sonorous  rhythm.  The  first  time  I  heard  Charlie  Bryan 
speak  in  public  was  in  a  court  room.  He  was  defending  a  sur- 
geon for  malpractice.  A  man  had  been  shot  through  the  mus- 
cles of  the  arm  between  the  elbow  and  shoulder,  the  shot  graz- 


JUDGE  CHARLES  H.  BRYAN.  71 

ing  but  not  severing  the  main  artery.  The  surgeon  amputated 
the  arm  and  the  victim  had  sued  him,  claiming  heavy  damages, 
on  the  ground  that  the  amputation  was  needless.  Eminent 
counsel  were  pressing  the  suit,  and  Bryan  was  alone  in  the 
defense.  The  suit  hung  on  the  question  of  how  serious  the 
wound  was  to  the  main  artery.  Bryan  established  that  the 
outer  coat  of  the  artery  was  wounded.  Opposing  counsel 
insisted  that  it  was  but  grazed  and  not  seriously  injured.  An 
old  army  surgeon  was  called  to  the  stand,  the  nature  of  the 
wound  was  described  to  him  and  he  was  asked  what  the  prac- 
tice would  be  in  the  army,  if  such  a  wound  was  encountered. 
He  promptly  replied :  'We  would  take  no  chances,  but  ampu- 
tate the  arm,"  but  at  once  added.  "You  know,  we  have  not 
much  time  when  a  battle  is  on  and  many  a  limb  is  amputated 
that  ought  to  be  saved." 

Now,  when  Bryan's  client  amputated  the  arm  he  had 
plenty  of  time,  but  was  in  a  mountain  mining  camp  where 
there  w^ere  not  many  facilities  for  nursing  the  sick  or  attending 
to  the  wounded.  All  the  facts  were  brought  out  but,  boy  that  I 
was,  I  thought  no  especial  skill  had  been  exercised  on  either 
side.  When  the  arguments  began,  one  of  the  attorneys  for  the 
plaintiff  stated  the  case  briefly,  that  the  man  was  shot  through 
the  arm,  a  mere  flesh  wound  that  should  have  been  healed  in 
ten  days  at  most,  whereas  the  bungler  in  charge,  either  through 
ignorance  or  a  desire  to  make  a  large  fee  and  some  fame,  had 
amputated  the  limb,  crippling  the  man  for  life. 

Then  Bryan  spoke.  His  voice  to  the  jury  was  like  a 
caress  at  the  opening,  as  he  explained  to  them  their  high  duty 
as  jurors,  instruments  selected  to  speak  in  the  very  name  of 
justice.  He  then  swiftly  reviewed  the  testimony  and  declared 
that  all  of  importance  that  had  been  delivered  was  by  the  army 
surgeon.  Then  his  voice  took  on  a  shriller  cadence.  In  half 
a  dozen  terse  sentences  he  described  a  battle  in  progress — one 
could  hear  the  volleys  and  the  shouting,  the  tread  of  men  and 
horses  and  now  and  then  it  seemed  a  strain  of  marshal  music, 
the  blare  of  a  trumpet  and  the  roll  of  drums.  Then  a  wounded 
man  was  pictured,  a  man  with  a  shot  through"  the  arm.  A 
whole  corps  of  surgeons  are  near;  the  probing  of  the  wound 


72  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

reveals  a  wounded  artery,  and  the  order  is  without  hesitation  : 
"The  arm  must  be  amputated." 

Then  the  picture  w-as  changed  to  a  rough  mining  camp ; 
the  room  a  miner's  cabin ;  the  Hghts  but  a  few  candles :  a  lone 
surgeon  with  but  few  instruments ;  the  Avounded  man  faint 
from  loss  of  blood  brought  in,  the  wound  still  bleeding;  and  in 
those  rude  surroundings  the  surgeon  does  the  best  he  can,  and 
what  he  does  saves  the  man's  life.  Then  to  the  jury,  in  a 
solemn  voice  he  said :  "Shall  this  devoted  man  be  punished  for 
saving  that  life?" 

The  speech  was  but  twenty-three  minutes  in  delivery,  but 
it  had  woven  its  spell.  The  associate  counsel  for  the  plaintiff 
tried  argument  and  ridicule  and  scorn  in  vain  against  it. 

For  several  years  Bryan's  success  as  an  advocate  and 
rostrum  orator  was  phenomenal;  at  last  he  became  a  judge  of 
the  Supreme  court.  In  that  office  he  never  made  a  mark.  He 
was  essentially  an  advocate. 

Soon  after  it  began  to  be  noticed  that  his  mental  faculties 
were  breaking  down.  He  bought  the  great  race  horse  Lodi 
and  was  often  seen  on  the  race  track.  He  began  to  drink  a 
good  deal ;  then  as  the  crisis  of  the  Civil  war  grew  near,  as 
Broderick  and  Ferguson  were  killed  and  old  friends  grew  cold, 
when  it  began  to  be  clear  what  was  coming,  Bryan  was  greatly 
perturbed.  He  was  an  Ohio  man  by  birth,  but  always  a  Demo- 
crat. When  the  great  race  between  Lodi  and  Norfolk  was  on 
at  San  Jose,  the  colored  man  who  had  been  the  stable  com- 
panion of  Lodi  since  colthood,  who,  so  to  speak,  had  brought 
him  up.  had  broken  him,  trained  him  and  petted  him  until 
neither  the  man  nor  the  horse  desired  any  other  companionship 
— this  colored  man  went  to  a  group  of  gentlemen  on  the  track 
and  told  him  that  he  could  do  nothing,  that  Massa  Bryan  so 
interfered  with  him  that  he  was  helpless. 

They  told  the  colored  man  that  they  had  laid  heavy  wagers 
on  the  horse,  and  if  Bryan  tried  any  more  to  interfere,  to  not 
mind  him,  to  knock  him  down  if  necessary  and  thev  would  pro- 
tect him.  He  went  back  to  the  horse  and  soon  Brvan  came 
again  and  began  to  order  him  what  to  do.  The  colored  man 
took  Bryan  gently  by  the  shoulders  and  said:    "Massa  Brvan. 


JUDGE  CHARLES  H.  BRYAN.         73 

you  must  go  away  and  not  bother  me  any  more  until  this  race 
is  over."  Bryan,  astounded,  looked  at  him  a  moment,  then 
turned  and  walked  rapidly  to  a  Democratic  friend  and  in  a 
whisper  said  :  "We  must  get  out  of  here ;  the  abolitionists  have 
got  this  town." 

He  drifted  to  Virginia  City,  Nevada.  There  he  imagined 
he  was  commander  of  a  picked  army  which  he  called  "The 
Arizona  Rifles."  He  would  explain  in  the  most  perfect,  classic 
English  what  the  command  consisted  of,  what  its  purposes 
were,  how  high  were  its  motives ;  what  it  was  sure  to  accom- 
plish— the  most  beautiful  English  one  could  imagine,  but  not 
one  word  of  sense. 

It  was  in  the  days  when  the  lawsuits  on  the  Comstock 
assumed  magnified  proportions ;  it  was  at  the  time,  too,  when 
so  many  companies  changed  the  old  forms  into  corporations. 
In  those  days  some  young  lawyers  did  not  know  everything 
about  corporation  laws ;  at  least  their  practice  had  been  outside 
of  them. 

One  night  a  young  lawyer  with  two  or  three  clients  was 
discussing  an  important  case  which  they  had  on  in  the  courts, 
when  the  lawyer  frankly  admitted  that  he  was  extremely  per- 
plexed and  said  he  wanted  associate  counsel  or  at  least  the 
advice  of  some  lawyer  who  was  more  familiar  with  those 
phases  of  the  law  than  he.  One  of  the  principals  who  knew 
Bryan  well,  said :  "Let  us  go  and  find  Charlie  Bryan.  He  is 
crazy  as  a  bed-bug,  but  he  might  steer  us  straight." 

They  found  him  in  bed  in  a  hotel.  He  greeted  them, 
first  putting  up  his  arms  as  though  he  held  a  gun,  and  began  to 
speak  of  the  Arizona  Rifles.  The  young  lawyer  interrupted 
and  explained  to  him  his  trouble  in  making  an  application  of 
the  law  to  a  case  in  point.  Bryan  listened  and  then,  sitting  up 
in  bed,  said :  'The  case  is  simple.  You  have  become  confused 
in  trying  to  make  an  application  from  some  contradictory 
statutes  which  the  British  Parliament  has  woven  into  the  law, 
to  distinguish  ecclesiastical  from  commercial  corporations.  But 
the  point  you  seek  to  establish  was  a  fundamental  factor  in 
the  law  as  originally  framed  in  old  Rome,  two  thousand  years 
ago."    In  the  meantime  his  eyes  had  become  fastened  on  a  rude 


74  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

picture  seen  through  the  dim  light  suspenaed  on  the  opposite 
wall  of  his  room,  and  he  began  to  address  that,  as  he  would  a 
court.  He  explained  the  whole  history  of  the  laws  governing 
corporations  as  they  had  from  time  to  time  been  expounded 
and  established  in  old  Rome;  linked  them  together  until  they 
became  a  perfect  system,  and  with  a  diction  altogether  fault- 
less and  a  courtesy  and  grace  exquisite,  exhausted  the  subject 
and  then  demanded  judgment.  Then  he  ceased,  dropped  back 
upon  his  pillow  and  in  a  moment  fell  asleep.  His  awed  visitors, 
breathless,  on  tip-toe  backed  noiselessly  from  the  room  and 
noiselessly  closed  the  door. 

It  was  Br)'an's  last  address  to  a  court — the  last  flash  of  a 
glorified  intellect  going  into  final  eclipse.  I  have  often  won- 
dered where  he  thought  he  was,  before  what  audience  he  was 
speaking.  Was  it  a  mental  reincarnation,  and  was  the  oppos- 
ing counsel  some  stately  Roman  like  Cicero  and  the  court  the 
senate  of  Rome?  Or  was  it  the  lord  chief  justice  of  England 
that  he  was  addressing,  with  the  paraphernalia  of  England's 
highest  court  around  him  ?  Was  it  an  occasion  such  as  he  had 
dreamed  of  when  first  from  school  there  were  whispers  from 
his  own  soul  of  what  he  might  be  if  he  tried?  \Mio  knows? 
But  what  a  pity  that  when  he  sank  to  sleep  that  slumber  had 
not  deepened  into  the  final  sleep,  for  a  few  months  later  he 
died  a  pitiable  accidental  death  in  Carson  City. 

In  all  my  life  I  never  saw  so  splendid  an  intellect  shat- 
tered; never  a  life  so  filled  with  promise  go  into  total  eclipse. 


THE  OLD  SAN  FRANCISCO. 

SOMETIMES  it  is  a  relief,  or  at  least  a  rest,  to  turn 
away  from  men  and  have  a  visit  with  nature.  If  it  is 
some  spot  that  we  love,  it  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that 
there  is  a  subconscious  affinity  between  us. 

The  first  time  I  looked  out  upon  San  Francisco,  it  was 
from  the  deck  of  a  battered  steamship  that  had  been  in  a  fierce 
fight  with  winds  and  waves  for  thirty  hours ;  which  had  been 
so  nearly  lost  just  inside  "The  Heads"  that  a  passenger,  an 
old  shipmaster,  turned  to  a  man  beside  him  and  in  a  low 
voice  quietly  said :  "This  ship  and  these  six  hundred  lives  are 
not  worth  a  straw." 

But  the  steamer  finally  righted  up  and  limped  on  into  port, 
though  the  gale  was  so  fierce  in  the  bay  that  the  ship  could 
not  pull  into  the  pier  until  the  next  day.  Through  that  after- 
noon I  watched  the  little  city,  and  during  that  afternoon  I  built 
more  than  one  city,  in  imagination,  on  her  site.  I  remember 
that  one  was  a  new  Venice,  for  the  bay  was  an  inland  sea  as 
beautiful  as  the  Adriatic,  a  marvelous  place  as  it  looked,  for 
sailing  gondolas. 

But  a  new  Rome  suited  best,  for  I  could  look  forward  to 
a  time,  not  far  away,  when  "from  her  throne  of  beauty"  she 
was  "to  rule  the  world." 

Why  should  she  not?  Behind  her  was  the  wonderful 
state,  which  in  everyone's  thought  was  ribbed  with  gold ;  be- 
yond was  "the  East"  from  which  the  argosies  of  the  Orient,  in 
ceaseless  procession,  were  to  come  and  go  until  the  new  empire 
should  eclipse  all  that  had  been  accomplished  in  all  the  rolling 
ages  since  man  began  to  build  his  landmarks  on  the  ocean's 
shores. 

Though  but  a  boy,  I  knew  that  from  the  first  our  country 
had  been  crippled  for  want  of  money ;  but  now  a  golden  stream 
had  started  to  flow  through  that  gate  of  gold,  and  its  volume 
was  steadily  increasing — why  should  not  ours  be  the  richest  of 
all  lands? 


76  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

\\  hen  next  day  we  went  ashore,  the  prospect  lost  some  of 
its  charm.  There  were  no  fine  structures  there  then ;  the  httle 
old  American  Exchange  was  the  fine  hotel.  And  how  was  a 
great  city  to  ever  grow  out  of  those  sand  dunes?  But  even 
then  I  stopped  at  a  little  place  where  a  few  flowers  were  offered 
for  sale,  and  I  caught  for  the  first  time  the  fragrance  of  San 
Francisco  flowers.  The  memory  of  that  clings  to  me  still.  I 
think,  with  my  eyes  bandaged,  were  half  a  dozen  boquets  from 
dififerent  points  submitted  to  me  I  could,  just  by  the  fragrance, 
select  the  one  from  San  Francisco. 

Among  the  first  things  to  notice  was  the  absence  of  old 
men,  but  the  presence  of  a  multitude  of  young  men,  and  every 
state  had  its  representatives.  It  was  there  that  north  and  south 
and  east  and  west  met,  and  from  there  started  out  for  the  con- 
quest of  the  wilderness. 

Never  before  did  any  army  so  splendid  take  up  its  march 
to  drive  a  wilderness  back ;  to  build  the  first  temples  to  Indus- 
try, to  Order,  to  Progress,  to  Peace.  A  new  civilization  was 
to  be  founded,  a  new  order,  where  all  the  narrowness,  all  the 
provincialism,  all  the  little  envies  and  jealousies  of  the  older 
states  were  never  to  secure  a  foothold. 

The  most  experienced  and  careful  comers  were  the  ones 
to  remain  there;  the  alert  and  exultant  ones  sought  the  hills, 
to  turn  the  rivers  and  to  leach  the  sands  of  their  gold. 

When,  after  a  little,  the  men  from  the  diggings  came  with 
their  dust  and  from  the  proceeds  began  the  fashion  of  painting 
the  town  red,  then  the  "honest  miner"  acquired  a  name.  He 
was  of  a  new  species  never  seen  before,  and,  praise  God.  he 
has  kept  the  species  distinct  and  pure  ever  since. 

The  city  never  had  a  setback  until,  upon  the  killing  of 
James  King  of  William,  the  vigilance  committee  sprang  to  life 
in  a  night  and  caused  it  to  stand  still  for  a  year  and  more. 

As  the  placers  began  to  fail  the  marvelous  fertility  of  the 
soil  began  to  cause  men  to  look  forward  to  a  time  when  the 
gold  yield  might  fall,  but  to  be  succeeded  by  a  more  rational 
wealth. 

Then  came  the  Eraser  river  excitement,  which  further 
crippled  the  revenues  from  the  mines,  but  the  city  continued  to 


THE  OLD  SAN  FRANCISCO.  77 

grow.  It  had  become  a  settled  fact  that  among  all  the  cities  of 
the  world  not  one  was  more  superbly  located,  not  one  had 
superior  natural  advantages  around  and  behind  it. 

All  this  time  there  was  another  band  of  men  gathered 
there  whose  thoughts  and  lives  were  not  disturbed  by  the  rush 
and  roar,  but  rather  their  purpose  was  to  magnify  the  welfare 
of  their  fellow  men.  Such  men  as  the  Rev.  Stebbins,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Scott,  a  little  later  Thomas  Starr  King,  Professor  Joseph 
LeConte,  and  others — a  royal  band.  The  learned  professions 
were  filled  with  eminent  men.  A  wonderful  array  of  bright 
writers  were  calling  out  the  laughter  and  the  tears.  Lieut. 
Derby — ']o\\x\  Phoenix" — was  making  San  Diego  famous; 
Tecumseh  Sherman  was  in  a  bank  in  the  city ;  over  at  Mare 
Island,  the  great  Farragut  was  listening  for  the  call  which 
should  give  him  immortality,  and,  later,  out  at  Alcatraz  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston  was  waiting  for  his  summons  to  "glory  and 
the  grave." 

At  that  time,  too,  the  homes  of  San  Francisco  were  the 
most  delightful  in  the  world.  No  one  was  very  rich,  none  ex- 
ceedingly poor,  and  there  was  a  cordiality  in  the  hospitalities 
extended  to  guests  which  was  something  to  remember  always. 

But  when  the  call  from  the  desert  was  heard,  when  the 
story  of  the  Comstock  was  first  told,  then  a  transformation 
began.  When  a  man  made  a  stake  his  first  thought  was  to  have 
a  house  in  San  Francisco.  It  had  been  the  Mecca  to  which  they 
had  all  gravitated  when  they  made  a  stake ;  now  as  many  as 
could,  wanted  a  palace  of  his  own.  From  the  mines  of  the 
desert  a  new  city  grew  up  on  the  site  of  San  Francisco ;  grew 
and  flourished.  New  public  temples,  new  private  mansions 
grew  into  form  and  place;  with  them  increased  wealth  came 
and  increased  hospitality,  and  all  in  all  the  city  was  the  most 
delicious  place  to  live  in  on  all  this  world,  from  the  opening 
of  the  first  bonanza  on  the  Comstock  to  the  time  when  the 
jealous  earthquake  and  the  devouring  fire  came  to  challenge 
that  brave  people  to  gird  on  their  armor  and  build  a  new  city. 

It  is  said  the  new  city  is  fairer  and  stronger  than  was  the 
old,  and  it  may  be,  but  it  cannot  be  the  same.  The  echoes  of 
tlie  nld  voices  liave  grown  still.     Tlie  men  of  afifairs  are  new 


78 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEAI. 


men.  The  old  industrial  kings  long  ago  laid  down  their  scep- 
tres ;  there  may  be  new  ones  as  gallant,  and  strong,  and  brave, 
but  they  are  for  the  new  generation. 

\\'hen  the  command  was  given  for  the  United  States  to 
"Forward  march!"  it  was  in  San  Francisco  that  the  march 
began.  It  was  there  that  a  new  race  assumed  control;  the 
blending  of  all  that  was  good  in  all  the  states,  made  a  distinct 
race  there,  and  if  it  did  spoil  women  and  children,  it  was  of 
itself  the  best  ever.  It  made  possible  a  new  order  of  man- 
hood ;  it  made  the  city  that  it  built  a  hallowed  spot,  and  it  will 
continue  to  be  such  to  those  who  watched  its  first  growth,  as 
long  as  they  remain  on  this  side ;  and  to  those  who  anticipate  a 
haven  of  rest,  in  their  deeper  thoughts  picture  it  as  something 
such  as  the  early  San  Francisco  was,  only  with  fewer  saloons 
anad  more  flowers. 


THE  SACRAMENTO  UNION. 

THERE  are  times  when  the  tangible  work  of  men  is  made 
to  shine  out  in  a  form  which  is  a  splendor,  though  the 
men  lose  their  individual  personality  in  performing  that 
work,  and  the  work  itself  takes  on  a  personality  of  its  own. 

Anthony,  Morrill  and  Larkin,  I  believe,  founded  the  Sac- 
ramento Union.  Larkin  was  a  trained  newspaper  man,  and 
we  have  heard  that  Anthony  and  Morrill  were  in  youth  com- 
positors, but  of  this  we  are  not  sure.  But  they  awakened  a  voice 
in  California,  that  had  tones  in  it  which  early  attracted  atten- 
tion. And  that  voice  kept  sounding  on  and  on  with  ever- 
increasing  volume  and  power  through  all  the  formative  years 
in  the  life  of  California,  until  at  last  it  became  an  enchantment. 
I  have  no  knowledge  of  any  other  such  journal  as  the  Sacra- 
mento Union  between  the  years  1854  and  1865. 

I  know  of  no  journal  that  had  the  same  influence  upon  the 
public.  Most  of  those  years  were  stormy  years  in  California. 
The  admission  of  California  as  a  free  state,  greatly  incensed 
the  men  of  the  old  slave  states  who  leaned  upon  John  C. 
Calhoun  as  their  ideal  of  both  high  manhood  and  profound 
statesmanship.  Though  the  convention  that  framed  the  first 
constitution  of  California  contained  a  majority  of  southern 
men,  when  the  question  of  slavery  or  freedom  for  the  state 
came  up,  with  but  one  dissenting  vote,  the  state  was  conse- 
crated to  freedom  forever. 

When  the  news  of  this  reached  Washington,  and  the 
constitution  was  presented  with  the  appeal  for  admission  into 
the  Union,  Mr.  Calhoun  led  the  opposition  to  admission  with  a 
kind  of  fury.  It  was  his  last  fight.  He  rose  from  what  may 
l)e  called  his  dying  bed  to  wage  it,  which  gave  it  a  pathos 
that  touched  many  southern  hearts. 

The  question  hung  in  the  balance  for  several  weeks.  But 
at  last  the  new  state  was  admitted,  and  my  belief  has  always 
been  that  it  was  then  that  secession  was  determined  upon,  that 


80 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


preparations  for  it  began  then,  and  the  only  waiting  thereafter 
was  for  some  event  on  which  a  plausible  excuse  could  be  for- 
mulated, on  which  to  precipitate  the  crisis.  And  though  the 
constitution  had  been  ratified  by  the  men  of  the  Golden  State, 
as  a  rule  the  "Chivalry"  wing  of  the  southern  men  in  that 
state  endorsed  the  position  of  the  southern  leaders  in  the  east, 
and  politics  became  stormy  in  California  at  once. 

Then,  too,  the  old  Whig  party  was  disintegrating.  The 
Democratic  party  at  last  was  rent  in  twain ;  the  extreme 
southern  men  flocked  by  themselves,  and  of  the  old  Whigs  a 
part  joined  the  northern  Democrats,  while  a  few  formed  a 
nucleus  of  a  California  Republican  party  corresponding  with 
the  Republican  party  that  had  been  launched  in  the  east. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Sacramento  Union  had  drawn  to  it 
the  enthusiastic  support  and  affection  of  all  northern  California. 
It  was  an  independent  journal  and  discussed  all  questions  with 
perfect  candor  and  without  fear.  In  the  early  fifties  there 
were  many  camps  in  California  so  high  in  the  Sierras  that  they 
were  only  reached  by  trails,  and  in  others  the  roads  were 
blocked  for  several  months  each  winter  by  snow.  To  these 
only  the  express  companies  carried  communications — often  in 
winter  on  snow  shoes.  They  charged  25  cents  to  deliver  a 
newspaper.  Often  and  often  in  many  a  one  of  those  camps 
when  the  express  arrived,  all  that  was  brought  was  a  package 
of  letters  and  a  great  roll  of  Sacramento  Unions.  The  miners 
called  the  paper  their  bible.  That  hold  the  paper  never  lost, 
up  to  the  closing  of  the  Civil  war. 

It  was  conducted  with  a  judgment  and  ability  which  no 
other  journal  in  the  state  could  command,  and  then  there  was 
a  charm  about  it  which  drew  men  irresistibly  to  it.  It  was 
always  optimistic  about  California;  wdiile  glorying  in  the  pres- 
ent it  was  always  pointing  to  the  higher  destiny  which  it  must 
attain  and  all  the  time  it  was  as  broad  as  the  Republic  itself, 
while  it  met  every  local  question,  commercial,  social,  or  polit- 
ical, with  the  directness  of  intuition  and  the  full  grace  of 
inspiration.  During  the  two  or  three  stormy  years  preceding 
the  outbreak  of  the  rebellion,  it  was  most  masterful  in  shaping 
public  opinion,  and  when  the  war  burst  upon  the  country,  "one 


THE  SACRAMENTO  UNION.  81 

blast  upon  that  bngle  horn  was  worth  a  thousand  men"  every 
morning. 

At  that  time,  a  gentleman  named  Watson  was  the  editor- 
in-chief.  I  never  saw  him,  but  was  told  at  the  time  that  he 
possessed  an  almost  supernatural  intellect,  but  was  a  slave  to 
strong  drink.  However  that  may  be,  there  were  no  such  edi- 
torials as  his  published  in  any  paper,  east  or  west.  As  the  war 
clouds  grew  darker  and  darker,  those  editorials  grew  more 
commanding  and  incisive  every  morning  and  at  the  same  time 
there  was  a  beauty  about  them  that  kindled  in  men's  hearts 
and  souls  a  zealous  patriotism  not  to  be  measured.  I  do  not 
know  that  the  paper  held  California  in  the  Union,  but  I  am  sure 
that  had  there  been  such  a  journal  on  the  other  side,  it  would 
have  carried  the  state  out,  or  at  least  made  of  it  a  battle  ground 
that  would  have  left  it  as  badly  scarred  as  was  Virginia. 

The  men  who  conducted  the  paper  were  never  known  to 
thousands  of  its  readers,  but  the  journal  itself  became  a  dis- 
tinct personality  to  them;  they  thought  of  it  as  something  with 
a  mind  all  masterful,  with  a  voice  which  to  them  was  sweeter 
than  a  woman's. 

When  the  war  was  over,  it  took  up  the  works  of  peace. 
It  had  for  years  been  the  advocate  of  the  transcontinental  rail- 
road, and  with  the  close  of  the  war  it  renewed  its  labors  for 
that  enterprise  and  was  a  marvelous  help  to  its  projectors  and 
builders. 

But  when  the  road  made  the  connection  with  the  Union 
Pacific  at  Promontory  in  1869,  and  the  policy  of  its  builders 
became  fully  understood,  the  Union  called  a  halt  upon  them. 

It  had  given  all  its  support  to  Leland  Stanford  when  he 
was  a  candidate  for  governor  and  through  his  administra- 
tion ;  it  had  given  the  great  enterprise  its  masterful  support,  but 
when  its  owners  and  managers  began  to  use  it  as  merely  an 
instrument  for  their  own  aggrandizement,  and  worse,  when 
they  entered  politics  and  dictated  who  should  and  who  should 
not  hold  the  offices,  the  Union  turned  upon  them  with  a  vehem- 
ence that  they  could  not  endure.  The  company  established  a 
l)aper  modeled  exactly  after  the  Union  in  size,  type,  paper  and 
make-up,  engaged  brilliant  men  to  conduct  it,  and  closed  their 


82  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

cars  against  the  Union.  In  the  meantime,  the  company  had 
built  the  inside  road  to  Los  Angeles  and  San  Diego  and  branch 
roads  in  every  direction.  It  forbade  the  paper  on  the  cars, 
closed  every  possible  avenue  against  the  great  journal  and 
finally  reduced  it  below  the  paying  point  and  forced  the  owners: 
to  sell  for  a  pittance,  when  it  was  merged  with  the  railroad 
paper  and  became  the  Record-Union. 

Its  death  was  simply  the  result  of  a  hired  and  premedi- 
tated assassination  and  it  was  killed  by  the  money  and  power 
it  had  so  ably  aided  the  railroad  owners  to  accumulate. 

But  the  cowardly  methods  by  which  its  death  was  com-, 
passed,  can  never  take  from  it  the  splendor  of  the  fame  which  i 
it  created  for  itself.    It  was  more  to  California  for  fifteen  years; 
after  the  admission  of  the  state  into  the  Union  than  any  otherj 
single  agency ;  California  never  realized  how  much  it  owed  tc 
it,  and  never  can  make  good  that  debt.     But  the  graves  of  the 
old  owners  and  editors  of  it  should  be  hallowed  ground  in  the 
Golden  State,  and  be  marked  in  such  a  way  that  Calif orniansj 
to  the  last  generation  should  be  taught  to  revere  it. 

And  could  all  the  journalism  in  any  state  be  modelec 
after  the  Sacramento  Union  as  it  was  from  1856  to  1865,  ther^ 
would  be  no  question  of  what  the  ruling  power  in  that  stat^ 
would  be.  It  would  be  the  mouthpiece  of  the  people :  theii 
reliance,  they  would  know  that  it  was  not  controlled  by  an] 
commercial  considerations;  no  selfish  ambition;  that  a  just 
cause  would  always  find  in  it  a  champion;  that  all  the  gold 
that  could  be  offered  could  never  induce  it  to  further  an  unjust 
scheme  or  dishonest  measure ;  that  while  working  for  a  live- 
lihood it  was  at  the  same  time  working  for  everything  of  good 
and  against  everything  of  evil,  and  that  the  people's  weal  and 
the  state's  progress  were  ever  uppermost  in  its  thought,  and 
so  the  people's  hearts  would  be  enlisted,  and  it  would  become 
to  them  both  a  protector  and  an  inspiration. 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 

WHEN  California  was  filled  with  great  men,  there  was 
a  merchant  in  Sacramento  who  for  a  time  was  not 
heeded  among  his  fellow  men  as  aught  but  one  of 
the  class  of  merchant  princes  of  which  there  were  many  in  the 
state,  and  of  which  Sacramento  contained  a  full  quota. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  the  people  were  unusually 
interested  in  a  question  and  one  night  at  a  public  meeting  this 
merchant  arose  and  made  a  brief  address.  It  was  published 
the  next  day  in  the  papers  and  then  it  suddenly  dawned  upon 
thousands  that  a  scholar  and  marvelous  thinker  had  been  found. 
That  was  Newton  Booth.  A  man  above  the  average  size,  fair 
complexion,  brown  hair  and  blue  eyes,  as  we  recall  him.  Then 
he  began  to  be  called  for  oftener  and  oftener  and  was  soon  a 
factor  in  public  life.  When  the  Republican  party  was  launched 
in  California  he  was  one  of  the  prominent  sponsors.  He  was 
as  eloquent  as  he  was  profound. 

When  the  project  of  building  a  transcontinental  railroad 
was  launched  in  earnest,  he  was  its  ablest  supporter,  and  the 
work  he  did  in  its  behalf  was  altogether  magnificent. 

That  the  old  Central  Pacific  company  was  able  to  obtain 
a  great  subsidy  from  Sacramento  and  Eldorado  counties  and 
San  Francisco  was  more  due  to  Newton  Booth  than  any  other 
one  man. 

Next  to  Colonel  Baker,  he  was  the  most  powerful  expo- 
nent of  Republican  party  principles  among  the  orators  of  the 
state.  But  he  relied  wholly  upon  argument.  He  could  bring- 
none  of  the  magnetism  of  Baker  to  the  work ;  none  of  the  light- 
ning flashes  of  that  inspired  soul,  but  he  talked  merely  as  an 
earnest  American. 

After  awhile  he  was  nominated  for  governor  and  cam- 
paigned the  state.  His  speeches  were  classics  of  their  kind. 
He  stood  for  Americanism  in  its  highest  sense,  and  for  the 
equal  rights  and  equal  opportunities  of  every  American  citizen. 

He  was  triumphantly  elected  and  for  four  years  held  the 


84  AS  I  REMEAIBER  THEM. 

high  office  with  signal  abihty,  until  his  name  became  a  syn- 
onym for  perfect  integrity  and  for  absolute  justice  under 
the  law. 

In  the  election  of  United  States  senators  there  had  been 
combinations,  deals,  and  no  end  of  stock-jobbing. 

\\'hen  Booth  was  appealed  to  as  the  logical  candidate  for 
the  place  and  urged  to  run  for  the  office,  his  reply  was:  "It  i- 
an  exalted  office,  it  is  as  it  was  in  old  Rome  when  to  be  a  sen- 
ator was  greater  than  to  be  a  king,  but,  gentlemen,  if  the  office 
in  California  is  to  cost  one  unworthy  promise  or  implied  prom- 
ise, or  one  tainted  dollar,  count  me  out  in  the  very  inception. 
If  a  majority  of  the  legislature  of  California  should,  of  their 
free  will,  unbiased  and  untrammeled.  decide  to  bestow  the 
honor  of  that  office  upon  me,  I  should  appreciate  it  as  no  man 
ever  did  before,  but  on  no  other  terms  would  I  accept  it,  for  if 
I  ever  go  to  Washington  as  a  senator  I  must  take  my  full  self- 
respect  with  me,  and  must  have  the  full  approval  of  my  own 
conscience. 

He  was  triumphantly  elected,  and  mingled  with  the  good- 
byes when  he  went  away  w^ere  a  thousand  expressions  that 
"next  time  we  will  send  you  as  president." 

But  that  was  practically  the  end.  He  made  no  mark  in  the 
senate.  Where  so  much  was  expected,  nothing  was  realized. 
We  cannot  recall  one  act  or  speech  of  his  in  the  senate  worth 
recital. 

It  was  worse  than  Senator  Nye's  account  of  the  first  speech 
of  Senator  Casserly  of  California.  As  Nye  told  it,  whenCasserly 
was  elected,  the  senators  gathered  around  him  and  asked  who 
this  Casserly  of  California  was  whom  the  legislature  of  that 
state  had  elected  senator,  Nye  told  them  that  he  was  a  graduate 
of  the  University  of  Dublin,  that  then  in  the  most  rigid  schools 
he  had  graduated  as  a  lawyer ;  that  he  had  enjoyed  a  great 
practice  for  years  in  his  profession  in  San  Francisco,  was  a 
most  profound  scholar  and  renowned  lawyer,  and  his  coming 
would  be  a  distinct  addition  to  the  senate. 

What  follows  is  in  Nye's  own  words  as  nearlv  as  we  can 
recall  them : 

"He  came  on  to  ^^'ashingtnn  and  took  his  seat.     After  a 


NEWTON  BOOTH.  85 

few  days,  before  he  got  his  sea  legs  under  him  at  all,  some  petty 
question  was  sprung  upon  the  senate,  a  question  that  no  one, 
no  matter  how  gifted,  could  make  a  speech  on  when,  to  my 
surprise,  the  new  senator  rose  to  his  feet.  The  president  of 
the  senate  at  once  recognized  him  and  he  began  to  speak.  He 
could  not  say  anything;  no  one  could  on  such  a  theme,  but  he 
stumbled  along,  and  I  was  searching  the  marble  floor  for  a 
knot-hole  to  fall  through.  An  inch  hole  would  have  been  big 
enough.  Finally  I  looked  up  and  Thurman  of  Ohio,  in  wiping 
his  face  waved  his  red  bandana  toward  me,  and  I  followed  him 
out  to  a  cloak  room.  x\rrived  there,  Thurman  said :  "]'nn, 
have  you  any  letters  patent  about  your  clothes  to  prove  that 
you  are  not  a  d — d  old  fool?'  And  I  announced  humbly,  'Not 
a  letter.     Not  a  letter,  Allen.'  " 

I  \\nien  his  term  was  out  Booth  returned  to  his  business  in 

Sacramento,  but  a  great  silence  closed  around  him. 
'  After  awhile  it  was  told  that  he  was  ill  of  an  incurable 
malady,  and  a  little  later  he  died.  We  never  heard  any  close 
friend  of  his  try  to  account  for  the  swift  change  that  came 
upon  him.  We  never  heard  of  a  parallel  case.  He  was  the 
same  to  all  outward  appearances ;  in  conversation  he  was  the 
same ;  there  was  no  hint  that  his  brain  was  giving  way ;  there 
was  no  sign  that  any  great  disappointment  or  anything  like  a 
heart  wound  had  come  to  him ;  but  the  essence  of  life  had  gone 
out.  He  had  simply  quit.  It  must  have  been  that  the  insidious 
disease  of  which  he  died,  had  in  its  first  stages  paralyzed  either 
his  courage  or  his  mental  energies,  but  whatever  it  was,  he  died 
long  before  he  ceased  to  breathe. 

To  show  his  style,  we  give  the  closing  paragraph  of  one  of 
his  political  speeches,  as  follows : 

"What  is  our  country?  It  is  not  the  land  and  the  sea,  the 
river  and  the  mountain,  the  people,  their  history  and  laws.  It 
is  something  more  than  all  of  these.  It  is  a  bright  ideal,  a 
living  presence  in  the  heart,  whose  destruction  would  rob  the 
earth  of  beauty,  the  stars  of  their  glory,  the  sun  of  its  bright- 
ness, life  of  its  sweetness,  love  and  joy.  My  countrymen,  cher- 
ish this  ideal.  It  will  exalt  you  as  you  exalt  it.  Make  it  your 
cloud  by  day,  your  pillar  of  fire  by  night. 


J.  E.  "LUCKY"  BALDWIN. 

NO  OXE  has  ever  yet  given  a  clear  idea  of  "Luckyi 
Baldwin.  Who  can?  Tall,  and  strong,  and  swarthy," 
his  eyes  sometimes  blazing  like  a  fiery  Spaniard's, 
sometimes  deep  and  sullen  as  a  Pottawattamie ;  not  much  faith 
in  the  average  man,  looking  on  most  women  as  schemers — 
he  must  have  been  the  child  of  parents  who  cared  little  for  each 
other  and  to  whom  his  birth  brought  little  joy.  Still  there  vras 
plenty  of  red  blood  in  his  veins  and  a  rude  integrity  and  fierce 
pride  gave  him  the  respect  of  business  men.  Moreover,  there 
was  a  strata  of  generosity  in  him  which,  as  is  often  seen  in 
some  mineral  formations,  was  prone  to  crop  out  in  real  gold 
in  unexpected  places. 

He  reached  California  early  in  the  fifties,  with  little  save 
his  hands  and  his  brains,  but  that  did  not  disturb  him,  for  he 
possessed  a  dauntless  courage.  Moreover,  he  had  no  false 
pride ;  he  was  ready  to  engage  in  any  work  which  was 
honorable,  and  he  believed  that  with  his  capacity  and  industry 
he  could  forge  out  for  himself  a  place  among  men. 

He  made  a  stake  by  contracting  in  San  Francisco :  then 
lost  most  of  it.  How,  no  one  seemed  to  know,  but  all  agree 
that  when  the  Comstock  was  found,  he  had  little.  He  went 
there  early,  and  his  subsequent  career  for  fifteen  years  is  a 
pretty  good  indication  that  he  had  been  a  chance-taker  in  every- 
thing that  came  along,  from  lottery  tickets  to  mining  shares. 

He  had  been  in  Virginia  City  but  a  brief  time  when  he 
began  nibbling  at  stocks,  then  to  plunging  in  them. 

But  he  was  harder  student  than  he  had  ever  been  before 
and  he  knew  the  Comstock  as  he  did  his  alphabet,  from  the 
Sierra  Nevada  to  the  Justice. 

He  steadily  made  money  and  steadily  invested  it  where 
he  believed  that  his  dollars  would  multiply  fast.  He  had  large 
interests  on  the  Comstock  and  in  California  and  finally  ob- 
tained the  control  of  the  Ophir. 

In  some  way  he  had  about  $40,000  in  a  Los  Angeles  bank. 


J.  E.  "LUCKY"  BALDWIN.  87 

It  was  said  he  loaned  it  to  a  friend  and  had  no  security  save  a 
mortgage  on  a  wild  tract  of  22,000  acres  of  land  some  few- 
miles  from  Los  Angeles.  He  was  obliged  to  take  the  land  at 
last  for  the  debt,  when  it  could  not  have  been  sold  for  fifty 
cents  an  acre. 

But  that  ranch  gave  him  the  title  of  "Lucky"  Baldwin, 
for  a  railroad  crept  down  there  at  last,  then  another,  and  south- 
ern California  began  to  boom  and  the  Santa  Anita  ranch 
became  a  principality. 

I  met  him  once  in  San  Francisco  and  he  did  me  the  honor 
to  ask  me  to  "come  down  and  spend  a  month  on  the  ranch." 
Continuing,  he  said,  "There's  a  lot  of  horses,  steppers  and 
flyers,  saddles  and  buggies,  cattle,  sheep,  fruits  and  flowers  of 
all  kinds,  enough  to  keep  you  enjoying  yourself  for  a  month  or 
six  weeks." 

Then  I  asked  him  what  he  raised  on  his  ranch,  and  his 
reply  was :  "Every  blamed  thing  in  the  world,  except  the  mort- 
gages." 

This  was  in  the  early  eighties,  after  the  place  had  become 
famous. 

He  left  the  Comstock  in  the  late  sixties  to  make  his  home 
in  San  Francisco — to  mine  the  Comstock — from  the  other 
end — on  the  stock  board. 

In  the  early  seventies  Mr.  Sharon  wanted  the  Ophir  in 
his  business  and  his  battle  with  Baldwin  for  the  control  was 
a  battle  royal,  and  Sharon  won. 

Baldwin's  financial  weapon  was  an  old-fashioned  musket, 
Sharon's  a  rapid-fire  magazine  gun ;  but  in  addition  Sharon  had 
much  the  heavier  reserves. 

The  Ophir's  proximity  to  the  California  and  the  indica- 
tions of  a  bonanza  in  the  latter  was  the  impelling  force  which 
made  both  men  fight  for  the  control. 

It  was  no  wonder  either:  a  few  months  later  California 
advanced  from  $35  per  share  to  a  figure  which  was  equivalent 
to  $12,000  per  inch  for  the  whole  length  of  the  mine. 

In  those  days  Baldwin  accumulated  a  great  fortune,  built 
the  Baldwin  Hotel  and  theatre  and  gathered  in  property  in 
half  a  dozen  states  and  trritories. 


88  AS  I  RE^^IEMBER  THEAI. 

He  stocked  the  Santa  Anita  ranch  with  l)lood  horses,: 
the  very  finest  that  could  be  found  by  scouring  the  world  forj 
them.  His  ambition  was  to  have  finer  and  fleeter  race  horses  1 
than  any  other  man. 

It  was.  too.  a  labor  of  love  with  him,  for  he  revealed, 
more  afifection  for  some  of  those  animals  than  he  had  e\er 
shown  for  anything  else  in  his  life.     His  friends  declare  that 
when  the  finest  one  of  them  all  died.   Baldwin's  heart  was 
broken,  and  he  never  had  a  well  day  afterward. 

\A'hen  a  great  fortune  came  to  him.  many  an  adventuress 
sought  his  acquaintance.  He  knew  their  object ;  he  was 
restrained  by  no  sense  of  propriety,  no  regard  for  public 
opinion,  no  chivalrous  regard  for  womanhood,  and  it  was  not 
long  until  he  took  the  blackguard's  idea  that  "every  woman 
had  her  price." 

He  was  the  only  man  that  we  ever  heard  of  who  plead 
in  answer  to  a  complaint  filed  against  him,  that  his  public 
reputation  was  such  that  every  woman  who  came  near  him 
must  have  been  warned  against  him  in  advance. 

Though  destitute  of  sensibility  and  callous  against  criti- 
cism, the  poison  of  the  reputation  he  made  for  himself  in  that 
regard,  at  last  penetrated  his  mind  and  his  bitterness  and 
smothered  wrath  against  the  world  and  himself  gave  a  sombre 
shadow  to  his  last  days,  which  was  a  reminder  of  a  wounded 
lion,  his  confident  roar  hushed  forever,  going  limping  to  his  lair 
to  growl  and  die. 

But  "Lucky"  Baldwin  had  a  wonderful  brain,  immense 
sagacity  and  solid  judgment;  he  could  grasp  a  business  propo- 
sition instantly  and  by  an  intuition  all  his  own  trace  from  a 
cause  to  an  inevitable  effect  with  lightning  swiftness;  while 
on  the  other  hand  he  grasped  with  equal  celerity  a  pure  gam- 
ble and  wagered  what  the  chances  were  to  win. 

And  he  was  ready  for  either  proposition  at  all  times. 

He  was,  moreover,  a  most  shrewd  judge  of  character. 

He  could  describe  in  three  sentences  either  of  the  strong 
men  around  him  in  those  tremendous  days  of  speculation  when 
the  arena  was  filled  with  giants  and  every  one  was  a  trained 
financial  eladiator. 


J.  E.  "LUCKY"  BALDWIN.  89 

In  his  methods  he  was  more  Hke  Jim  Keene  than  any  of 
the  others;  he  could  neither  be  frightened  nor  buHied;  he  as  a 
rule  held  his  gambling  instinct  in  leash  by  his  steady  judgment, 
but  when  he  did  gamble  in  earnest,  no  chance  was  desperate 
enough  to  make  him  shrink  from  taking  it. 

It  is  idle  to  say  what,  under  gentler  influence  and  different 
associations  and  conditions,  he  might  have  been,  for  no  one 
can  tell.  As  it  was,  he,  with  no  discipline  in  his  youth,  with  no 
great  moral  principles  to  hold  him  in  restraint,  was  tossed  upon 
the  west  coast  just  when  a  new  epoch  was  to  usher  in  the  metal- 
lic age,  when  the  age  of  scholarship  and  statesmanship  and  con- 
servative business  methods  were  to  be  subordinated  to  money, 
and  men's  respectability  and  power  were  to  be  estimated  by 
their  bank  accounts,  and  the  place  which  has  to  be  his  field  was 
that  winsome  city  by  the  Gate  of  Gold,  where  restraints  were 
few,  where  the  very  air  was  a  tonic  to  eager  men's  brains  and 
extravagance  in  thought  and  act  was  the  rule. 

It  was  there  that  he  was  tossed,  there  with  his  cjuick 
brain,  his  tireless  energy,  his  splendid  courage,  his  impatience 
of  all  restraint,  and  his  absence  of  all  moral  restrictions  except 
his  rude  integrity  in  business  matters. 

And  he  gloried  in  the  work.  His  great  love  for  blood 
horses,  we  suspect,  was  because  in  a  race  they  would  go  to  the 
last  limit  of  their  strength  to  win,  and  we  doubt  not  that  as  he 
watched  them  he  was  crooning  to  himself :  "That  is  likeRequa's 
fight  for  the  Norcross ;  like  Johnnie  Skae's  wrestle  with  the 
Sierra  Nevada;  like  Sharon's  first  fight  to  stand  off  D.  O. 
Mills,  when  he  wanted  the  bank  to  desert  the  Comstock,"  so 
through  his  horses  he  could  live  over  again  his  feverish  career. 

Still  it  all  passed  in  a  few  brief  years,  and  there  is  nothing 
left  him  but  a  lonely  grave,  and  one  looking  upon  it  and  think- 
ing what  the  occupant  might  have  been  and  done  with  his 
opportunities  and  gifts,  cannot  shake  off  the  thought  that  the 
Angel  of  Pity  comes  to  it  and  sheds  tears  upon  it  every  day. 


"JIM"  GILLIS. 

A  FORTY-NINER  was  Jim — one  of  the  typical  ones. 
From  Mississippi,  I  believe;  a  brother  of  our  Stevie 
Gillis  of  the  Enterprise,  in  Virginia  City.  Stevie  was 
younger  and  came  to  the  coast  later.  Stevie's  first  venture 
was  to  go  from  San  Francisco  to  Oregon,  about  1858,  wnth 
Long  Primer  Hall,  and  start  a  secession  newspaper.  I  believe 
only  one  edition  was  published.  How  Stevie  got  back  to  San 
Francisco  I  never  learned.  I  asked  him  once  how  long  his 
paper  lasted.  His  reply  was :  "Not  very  long,  but  at  one  time 
I  thought  it  was  liable  to  outlast  me."  On  returning  to  San 
Francisco  and,  dressed  in  his  best,  he  went  a  few  days  later  to 
the  polls  to  vote.  There  was  no  registration  in  those  days. 
Almost  everybody  voted.  But  on  this  occasion  a  big  fel- 
low, a  Democrat,  challenged  his  vote.  Stevie  was  a  little  man, 
his  opponent  a  big  one,  but  the  trouble  began  at  once.  Instead 
of  stopping  the  battle,  the  crowd  gathered  around  the  two  and 
began  to  make  wagers  on  the  outcome.  Stevie  walked  home, 
but  did  not  appear  for  three  or  four  days.  His  opponent  was 
carried  home  and  was  in  retirement  for  two  weeks.  When 
Stevie  did  appear  he  came  out  an  intense  Republican. 

I  asked  him  what  caused  the  change  in  his  political  views, 
reminding  him  that  the  man  had  a  perfect  right  to  challenge 
him.  "Why,  the  blankety  blank  blank  drove  a  scavenger 
wagon,  and  I  would  no  longer  belong  to  a  party  that  employed 
such  an  agent,"  was  his  reply. 

^^'el],  Jim  was  Stevie's  elder  brother.  When  he  reached 
California  he  went  prospecting,  and  early  in  the  fifties  found 
a  placer  mine  up  in  Tuolumne  country,  and  bought  or  pre- 
empted a  cabin  that  had  been  built  in  '49.  I  said  cabin,  but  it 
was  really  a  house,  or  it  was  when  I  saw  it  I  suspect  that 
Gillis  had  made  one  end  of  the  original  '49  cabin  a  home  sta- 
tion and  extended  it. 

It  was  a  typical  '49  house,  a  board  house,  set  on  upright 
posts,  which  raised  it  some  twelve  inches  above  the  ground. 


"JIM"  GILLIS.  91 

I  spent  a  couple  of  days  and  nights  in  it  in  the  early 
eighties,  and  it  was  well  preserved ;  the  rooms  most  ingeniously 
arranged  and  well  furnished. 

I  carried  a  letter  from  Stevie  and  was  cordially  welcomed 
by  Jim.  A  few  minutes  later  two  or  three  fine  dogs  came  in 
and  introduced  themselves  and  seemed  to  be  trying  to  convince 
me  that  they  were  glad  I  had  come. 

A  little  later  there  was  a  great  commotion  under  the 
liouse,  and  Gillis  explained  that  his  dogs  and  rabbits  were 
having  their  usual  romp  before  retiring  for  the  night. 

I  asked  him  if  the  dogs  and  rabbits  were  on  friendly  terms 
and  he  answered,  "Oh,  yes ;  they  grew  up  together  and  have 
been  running  mates  all  their  lives." 

Of  course,  the  placer  had  been  worked  out  early,  but  in 
the  meantime  Gillis  had  found  a  quartz  mine  near  and  had 
been  working  it  in  a  primitive  way  several  years  when  I  visited 
him. 

It  was  what  miners  call  a  pockety  mine,  little  bodies  of  ore 
interspersed  in  other  bodies  that  were  valueless.  When  a  body 
of  ore  was  found  Gillis  was  in  bonanza  and  picked  up  some- 
times a  few  hundred,  sometimes  a  few  thousand  dollars  rapidly. 

About  once  a  year  he  went  to  San  Francisco  on  a  visit ;  as 
he  said,  "to  see  the  fashions  and  buy  some  more  books."  He 
had  many  a  rare  volume;  read  them  all  and  knew  their  sub- 
stance and  was  bold  enough  to  dispute  any  proposition  that 
he  found  in  them  where  he  thought  the  author  had  failed  in 
either  principle,  consistency  or  logic. 

And  he  had  a  way  of  excusing  the  authors,  explaining 
that  when  they  wrote  they  had  thought  out  only  half  their 
thenie. 

This  was  intensely  interesting,  for  while  talking  he 
seemed  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  he  unwittingly  was  giving 
away  the  other  fact  that  he  had  explored  the  same  theme  to 
its  source. 

After  dinner  on  that  first  day  he  asked  me  to  go  with  him 
to  see  his  garden. 

He  had  fenced  off  about  three  acres  under  a  big  spring 
and  planted  a  garden. 


92  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM.     * 

He  had  a  few  vegetables,  a  good  deal  of  fruit  and  a  world 
of  flowers.  Along  the  line  of  one  fence  he  had  planted  a  great 
variety  of  berries,  and  the  bushes  were,  perhaps,  five  feet  in 
height. 

Suddenly  he  stopped  in  his  walk  and  asked  me  if  I  had 
ever  seen  a  mountain  quail  on  her  nest. 

I  replied  that  I  had  not,  and  that  I  had  always  understood 
they  were  untamable.  "Oh,"  said  he;  "they  don't  care  any- 
thing about  me."  With  that  he  went  to  a  near-by  shrub, 
parted  the  branches  with  both  hands  and  there,  not  a  foot  from 
his  hands,  not  sixteen  inches  from  his  face,  a  mother  quail 
sat  serenely  on  her  nest,  looking  confidently  up  into  his  face, 
without  one  symptom  of  fear. 

A  beautiful  Gordon  setter  dog  squatted  beside  him,  look- 
ing on  placidly,  showing  that  he  understood  that  the  quail  was 
one  of  the  family  and  must  not  be  disturbed. 

The  cabin  was  in  the  big  pines,  the  mountains  rose  like 
temples  in  the  background  and  far  away  to  the  east,  across  the 
range,  the  setting  sun  was  turning  to  purple  the  crest  of  Mount 
Bodie. 

I  did  not  ask  him  if  he  was  ever  lonely,  for  I  knew  that 
he  was  not.  He  had  his  books,  his  daily  papers,  his  dogs,  his 
rabbits,  his  birds  and  his  flowers ;  his  mine,  which  he  worked 
a  little  daily,  and  the  murmur  of  the  breeze  in  the  big  pines  to 
go  to  sleep  by. 

There  was  nothing  of  the  hermit's  exclusiveness  about 
the  place.  There  were  no  locks  on  the  doors  or  the  cupboard, 
all  passers-by  were  welcome  and  moreover,  he  was  an  author- 
ity in  that  region.  People  brought  their  troubles  and  differ- 
ences to  him  for  advice  or  adjustment  and  there  were  no  ap- 
peals from  his  decisions. 

Then,  too,  though  living  there  alone,  he  was  fully  abreast 
of  all  current  events,  as  given  day  by  day  through  the  news-  ~ 
papers,  and  would  drop  shrewd  remarks  as  he  discussed  them. 
If  there  was  a  trace  of  bitterness  or  prejudice  in  his  soul,  he 
kept  it  hid. 

On  the  first  night  we  sat  up  late  discussing  all  manner  of 
subjects.     The  conversation  finally  turned  to  the  writers  on 


"JIM"  GILLIS.  93 

the  coast  and  to  those  who  had  made  good.  I  mentioned  the 
name  of  Bret  Harte,  when  Gillis  said :  "Bret  Harte  is  an  un- 
pleasant memory  to  me.  He  came  here  once,  ragged  and  hun- 
gry, and  with  that  despair  upon  him  which  often  attends  upon 
genius  when  every  door  seems  closed  and  there  is  no  practical 
talent  to  forge  out  an  independent  path.  He  remained  here 
a  week,  and  when  he  was  leaving  I  gave  him  $50  and  told  him 
that  the  mountains  offered  him  nothing — to  go  to  San  Fran- 
cisco and  try,  that  he  could  forge  out  a  place  for  himself 
among  the  newspapers. 

"Some  months  later  I  went  to  San  Francisco.  In  the 
meantime  Harte  had  become  famous,  was  at  the  head  of  a 
prosperous  journal  and  praise  of  his  genius  was  heard  every- 
where. 

"I  was  sincerely  glad  and  went  to  his  office  to  congratulate 
him.  He  received  me  very  stiffly  and  coldly  and  showed  very 
plainly  that  he  was  bored  by  my  presence.  I  was  not  dressed 
like  a  bridegroom  and  my  hands  had  not  been  manicured 
that  day. 

"I  retired  in  as  good  order  as  I  could  and  all  that  night 
was  thinking  what  a  deuce  of  a  fraud  this  old  world  is. 

"But  next  day  I  went  back  to  the  newspaper  office,  walked 
straight  into  the  presence  of  Harte  and  said  to  him,  "I  would 
like  that  fifty  dollars  which  you  got  from  me,  Mr.  Harte." 

"He  touched  a  bell,  a  messenger  came,  to  whom  he  said, 

'Please  tell  Mr. to  send  me  a  check  for  fifty  dollars.     The 

messenger  soon  returned  and  handed  him  the  check.  He  en- 
dorsed it  and  handed  it  to  me.  I  took  it  and  said,  "Don't  mis- 
understand me,  Mr.  Harte ;  I  was  glad  to  give  you  that  money. 
I  have  been  glad  every  time  I  have  thought  of  it  since,  think- 
ing that  it  was  a  real  favor  to  you.  I  did  not  loan  it  to  you. 
I  gave  it  to  you,  marking  it  off  my  books.  I  have  rejoiced  to 
hear  of  your  success  since,  and  came  here  yesterday  for  no 
purpose  except  to  congratulate  you.  Your  reception  changed 
my  mind  in  some  respects. 

"Before  I  fell  asleep  last  night  my  soul  was  saying  to  me : 
'Gillis,  is  it  true  that  you  permitted  a  dirty  scrub  to  get  the 


94  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

best  of  you?'    That  is  why  I  came  back  this  morning".    We  are 
even  now.     Good  morning,  sir." 

The  Cabin  of  GilHs  was  three  miles  from  Tuttletown.  To 
catch  the  stage  one  had  to  be  there  at  6  a.  m. 

I  wanted  to  go  the  previous  evening,  but  Gilhs  said  there 
were  no  hotels  worth  the  name,  that  he  would  wake  me  in  time 
in  the  morning.  So  at  3  :30  a.  m.  I  was  up,  had  breakfast  and 
was  ready  to  start.  Gillis  put  on  his  hat  and  said :  "The 
woods  are  full  of  trails.  You  might  take  a  wrong  one,  besides 
I  want  my  mail.     I  will  show  you  the  way." 

It  was  in  the  late  summer  and  there  was  no  light  but  the 
stars,  as  we  took  the  trail.  Gillis  strode  on  in  advance  on  the 
trail,  talking  pleasantly  until  a  flash  of  light  shot  upward  in 
the  east,  the  first  light  of  the  dawn  and  a  bird  off  through  the 
mighty  forest  sounded  her  call. 

Gillis  forgot  me  in  a  moment,  and  answered  the  bird's 
good  morning  with  a  cheery  response,  calling  the  singer  by 
name  and  praising  her  for  being  the  first  bird  to  awake. 

An  instant  later  from  another  direction  came  the  secon( 
hail  from  an  awakening  bird,  and  Gillis  responded,  calling  hei 
by  name,  then  the  calls  came  oftener  and  oftener  and  Gillie 
named  each  one,  praising  some,  chiding  others,  calling  others' 
hypocrites  for  pretending  to  be  early  birds.  He  upbraided  the 
lark  for  the  false  reputation  she  claimed  as  the  first  to  hail 
the  dawn;  cautioned  the  mourning  dove  not  to  take  so  sad  a 
view  of  things  considering  who  her  mate  was,  called  the  owl, 
the  burglar  of  the  w^oods  going  home  with  his  mournful  ''too 
who,"  as  though  he  had  merely  been  out  visiting  friends,  when 
in  truth  he  had  been  raiding  the  woods  for  field  mice  all  night. 

All  this  went  on  until  the  stars  melted  away,  the  shad- 
ows fled  from  the  deep  woods,  the  full  dawn  turned  the  forest 
to  emerald  and  gold  and  the  air  was  resonant  with  music  from 
the  full  orchestra  of  the  birds. 

Poor  Jim,  he  has  passed  on,  but  if  in  Summer  land  there 
are  no  birds,  no  flowers,  no  music,  there  is  one  spirit  there  sor- 
rowing that  it  cannot  get  back  to  the  old  cabin  in  Tuolumne 
county,  where  the  air  is  soft,  where  the  flowers  bloom  and 
the  birds  sing  all  the  day  long. 


I 


B 


WILLIAM  LENT. 

Y  William  Lent,  I  mean  the  man  that  every  old  miner 
in  Nevada  knew  as  "Uncle  Billie  Lent."  He  was  an 
argonaut  and  soon  after  reaching  San  Francisco  became 
a  wholesale  merchant  on  Front  street  in  that  city.  He  was 
a  shrewd  merchant  and  made  money.  But  in  those  days  he 
could  not  tie  himself  down  to  the  daily  round  of  a  merchant's 
life.  When  a  ship  sailed  from  New  York,  or  Boston,  or  Phil- 
adelphia, or  any  other  Atlantic  or  Gulf  coast,  for  San  Fran- 
cisco a  copy  of  her  manifest  was  mailed  to  San  Francisco. 
These  were  published  in  San  Francisco  and  also  the  houses  to 
which  they  were  consigned. 

Then  the  merchants  and  brokers  would  buy  or  sell  these 
cargoes  to  arrive ;  would  buy  or  sell  long  or  short  according 
to  the  stock  on  hand  of  the  same  articles  in  San  Francisco,  and 
according  to  the  respective  ships  on  which  the  cargoes  were 
coming,  for  they  knew  the  reputation  of  the  different  ships,  as 
fast  or  slow  sailors,  and  when  a  new  ship  sailed,  from  the 
descriptions  given  of  them  by  the  eastern  papers,  they  would 
make  wagers  on  the  time  of  its  arrival. 

In  those  days  for  a  long  time  a  new  clipper  came  every 
month  or  two,  and  each  was  a  greater  marvel  than  its  prede- 
cessor. There  was  great  excitement  when  the  Sovereign  of  the 
Seas  came  in,  for  there  had  never  been  quite  so  grand  a  ship  as 
she  ever  built  before.  She  made  the  voyage  from  New  York 
in  ninety-seven  days,  and  the  freight  paid  on  her  first  cargo 
returned  to  her  owners  the  full  cost  of  the  ship. 

The  Flying  Cloud  was  another  wonder.  She  made  her 
first  voyage  in  eighty-nine  days.  But  she  was  favored.  When 
reaching  Cape  Horn,  instead  of  meeting  the  fierce  western 
winds  that  held  many  a  ship  off  the  Horn  for  six  weeks,  she 
caught  a  gale  from  the  east  and  her  daring  commander 
crowded  on  all  sail  and  made  374  miles  in  twenty-four  hours. 

Mrs.  Cressy,  the  commander's  wife,  was  on  board  and 
told  a  friend  on  reaching  San  Francisco  that  on  that  day  the 


96 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


cabin  was  dark  half  the  time  because  of  the  seas  pouring  over 
the  ship,  and  at  times  was  dark  so  long  that  she  thought  it 
would  never  be  light  any  more  for  those  on  the  ship. 

The  Trade  Whid  was  another  of  those  wonderful  ships. 
She  struck  something  after  rounding  the  Horn  that  stopped  the 
ship  dead  still  for  a  moment.  A  moment  later  a  whale,  cut 
half  in  two,  appeared  for  a  moment  on  the  surface  of  the 
sea  and  reddened  all  the  water  around  with  blood. 

When  the  ship  was  docked  in  San  Francisco  bay  it  was 
found  that  all  the  copper  from  bow  to  keel  had  been  torn  ofif. 

The  most  beautiful  of  all  those  clippers,  and  one  of  the 
fleetest,  was  the  Flying  Fish.  But  there  were  scores  of  them. 
It  requires  a  good  many  ships  to  carry  all  the  supplies  needed 
by  300,000  people,  when  the  voyages  are  13,000  miles  long. 

Those  were  the  days  when  our  merchant  marine  was  the 
pride  of  the  seas :  when  our  ships  were  the  fairest  and  fleetest 
that  had  ever  been  seen,  and  when  their  tonnage  exceeded  that 
of  any  other  nation,  not  excepting  Great  Britain. 

When  the  Crimean  war  came.  Great  Britain  chartered  one 
of  those  clippers — the  Great  Republic — to  carry  men,  horses 
and  war  munitions  to  Constantinople.  Loaded  at  Plymouth 
with  a  regiment  of  men,  five  hundred  horses,  and  a  thousand 
tons  of  freight,  the  ship  started  from  Plymouth,  England, 
with  a  steam  cruiser  to  convoy  her.  When  outside  the  harbor 
she  put  on  sail.  The  cruiser  had  to  signal  her  to  slow  down ;  it 
could  not  take  her  pace. 

Uncle  Billie  Lent  found  plenty  of  excitement,  in  keeping 
tabs  on  the  stocks  of  goods  on  hand,  on  the  average  monthly 
sales,  and  on  the  cargoes  to  arrive,  and  he  turned  many  a  penny 
to  his  own  advantage  by  being  shrewder  or  more  lucky  than 
his  neighbors. 

There  were  plenty  of  others  doing  the  same.  Ordinary 
California  houses  in  those  days,  instead  of  being  plastered,  were 
lined  with  canvas,  which  was  held  in  place  by  tacks.  One  genius 
saw  by  looking  at  the  manifests  of  ships  to  arrive  that  there 
would  be  no  more  tacks  reach  San  Francisco  for  five  or  six 
months.  He  bought  all  there  were  on  hand  and  made  a  little 
fortune.     That  he  was  being  anathematized  all  over  California 


WILLIAM   LENT.  97 

wherever  a  cloth  ceiHng  or  partition  was  being  tacked  up  did 
not  disturb  his  rest  at  all. 

When  the  Comstock  was  discovered  and  shares  appeared 
on  sale.  Uncle  BilHe  Lent  was  ready  to  take  on  some  new 
degrees. 

He  was  a  soft-voiced,  kindly  man,  made  friends  every- 
where and,  moreover,  in  business  was  dead  honest,  and  his 
word  was  everywhere  accepted  as  a  certified  check. 

He  had  a  thousand  generous  ways.  If  he  rode  on  the 
stage  from  Placerville  or  Dutch  Flat  to  Virginia  City,  on  get- 
ting down  from  the  stage  he  would  by  stealth  pass  up  a  twenty- 
dollar  piece  to  the  driver. 

He  would  touch  a  friend  on  the  shoulder  and  say :  "Ophir 
is  looking  pretty  well :  I  put  aside  fifty  shares  at  thirty  dollars 
for  you  this  morning.  When  it  touches  forty  I  believe  you 
had  better  sell." 

Result :  he  always  had  his  choice  of  seats  on  the  stage. 
When  the  rush  was  great  and  some  passengers  had  to  book 
ahead,  L"'ncle  Billie  could  always  get  a  seat.  It  woukl  have 
been  a  poor  agent  or  driver  who  would  not  have  made  an 
affidavit,  if  necessary,  that  Uncle  Billie  had  engaged  the  seat 
for  that  day  a  week  before.  And  if  any  stirring  man  who 
kept  his  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  market  and  on  the  condi- 
tions of  the  lower  levels  in  the  mines  got  what  he  thought  was 
a  pointer,  he  carried  it  to  Uncle  Bihie. 

He  wrestled  with  the  sharp  dealers  on  the  Comstock  and 
in  San  Francisco  and  was  able  to  say  as  the  dying  Californian 
did  to  his  wife :  "Tell  the  boys  that  I  think  I  has  bested  as  many 
as  has  bested  me;"  for  despite  the  soft  voice  and  the  genial, 
generous  ways  of  Uncle  Billie,  he  was  as  shrewd  as  the  very 
sharpest  of  them. 

He  and  George  Hearst  were  associated  for  a  time,  but 
that  was  before  Hearst  made  his  alliance  with  Haggin  and 
Tevis  and  he  had  not  money  enough  to  work  in  the  same  team 
with  LTncle  Billie. 

Mr.  Lent  dealt  constantly  in  Comstock  stocks  for  ten 
years,  and  as  before  he  wagered  on  the  speed  and  cargoes  of 


98 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


clipper  ships,  so  he  every  day,  so  to  speak,  took  the  sun  of  the 
Comstock  as  the  mariner  does  the  noonday  sun  at  sea. 

He  knew  all  the  mines  and  all  the  managers.  A\'hen 
some  of  the  managers  made  a  statement  of  conditions  he 
wagered  that  it  was  true,  when  a  few  others  made  statements 
of  what  was  and  what  must  be  in  the  immediate  future,  he 
unloaded  all  the  stocks  he  had  in  the  company  and  sold  short 
as  many  more. 

When  Mineral  Hill  had  been  opened  a  certain  depth  and 
halted  for  want  of  funds  to  procure  machinery,  on  the  advice 
of  Joe  Farren  he  put  his  shoulder  to  the  company  and  helped 
the  owners  through,  taking  his  fair  commission,  of  course. 
Mineral  Hill  was  a  porphyry  vein  in  granite,  and  to  those  who 
understood  the  formation,  it  was  always  safe  to  estimate  its 
value  down  to  the  lowest  point  that  the  porphyry  was  explored, 
the  belief  being  that  at  any  time  the  underlying  rock  would 
mark  the  depth  of  the  porphyry  and  the  ore  body.  But  the 
porphyry  held  good  for  1200  feet  in  depth  and  yielded  several 
millions  of  dollars. 

When  Buel  and  Bateman  obtained  their  option  on  Eureka 
Con.  at  Eureka,  Farren  joined  with  them,  and  Uncle  Billie 
backed  Buel  and  Bateman,  and  the  result  was  a  splendid 
success. 

But  Uncle  Billie's  greatest  triumph  was  at  Bodie,  south 
of  Carson,  but  on  the  east  side  of  the  Sierras  in  California.  He 
opened  and  equipped  a  mine  there  which  for  three  or  four  years 
was  more  like  a  mint  than  a  mine.  No  one  except  Mr.  Lent's 
heirs  knows  how  much  money  he  made  there,  but  it  was  a 
vast  fortune. 

He  must  have  been  close  upon  eighty  years  of  age  at  the 
time,  but  "age  had  not  withered  him  nor  custom  staled"  his 
genial  nature,  his  shrewdness,  or  his  tireless  energy. 

Most  of  the  bonanza  kings  had  many  enemies.  It  is  a 
habit  of  mankind,  when  they  see  a  fellow  man  accumulate  a 
great  fortune,  no  matter  how  fairly,  to  brood  over  it.  and 
many  grow  to  believe  that  if  the  world's  gifts  had  been  fairly 
divided,  no  one  man  could  have  gathered  to  himself  so  much 
treasure. 


WILLIAM   LENT.  99 

I  never  heard  of  any  one  who  had  that  feehng  toward 
Mr.  Lent.  When  a  man  is  called  Billie  Lent  in  his  youth, 
Uncle  Billie  Lent  in  middle  age,  and  old  Uncle  Billie  in  his  old 
age,  those  are  all  indications  that  he  has  the  love  near  him  and 
the  admiration  and  kindly  thoughts  of  thousands  who  never 
clasped  his  hand. 

So  while  Uncle  Billie  was  as  sharp  as  the  sharpest,  while 
in  business  he  never  asked  any  odds  of  any  one ;  he  managed 
to  hold  his  own;  to  line  his  path  with  charities,  to  say  gen- 
erous and  hopeful  words  to  those  less  successful  than  himself; 
to  draw  to  him  in  splendid  loyalty  such  men  as  he  needed  to 
work  out  his  enterprises,  and  if  he  had  any  enemies  I  never 
heard  of  them. 

This  was  because  he  was  always  manly  and  frank  and 
candid ;  he  had  no  false  pride ;  every  man  met  him  on  equal 
terms — a  pair  of  overalls  was  as  fine  as  a  dress  suit  with  him 
if  the  right  man  was  inside  the  overalls. 

He  died  in  San  Francisco  many  years  ago  away  past  the 
eighties,  but  he  is  still  affectionately  remembered  there. 

My  thought  is  if  where  he  is  he  is  as  he  was  when 
riding  on  the  coaches  here — he  has  the  choice  of  seats,  and  if 
he  had  his  pick  of  places,  there  is  a  phantom  ocean  bearing- 
ghostly  ships  into  their  haven,  and  spectral  mountains  in  the 
background  that  contain  celestial  ores,  and  that  he  divides  his 
eternity  making  wagers  of  what  ghostly  ship  is  nearing  the 
offing,  and  counting  on  the  news  that  the  next  ethereal  aero- 
plane will  bring  down  from  the  mines. 

In  the  meanwhile  all  the  neighboring  ghosts  are  wont  to 
gather  near  to  hear  his  ghost  tell  of  the  lively  times  he  had  on 
the  Comstock  and  how,  in  his  old  age,  he  scooped  all  the  voung 
men  when  he  took  in  the  mine  at  Bodie. 


TOD  ROBINSON. 

HE  WAS  not  just  like  any  of  the  others  of  the  Argo- 
nauts. A  matured  man  when  he  reached  the  west 
coast ;  a  fine  scholar,  an  eminent  lawyer,  an  orator 
most  careful  in  his  selection  of  language,  always  in  a  public 
address  to  adjust  himself  to  his  audience;  at  home  talking  to 
a  company  of  farmers,  though  he  had  but  vague  ideas  of  a 
farmer's  life,  but  leaving  an  impression  upon  his  hearers  that 
a  great  farmer  was  spoiled  when  he  became  a  lawyer ;  mostJ 
intense  in  his  sectional  prejudices,  but  veiling  them  all  in  his* 
dealings  with  men;  imperious  in  his  self-consciousness,  but  in 
his  life  meeting  all  men  as  though,  to  him,  they  were  all  on 
the  same  plane,  he  managed  to  draw  to  him  the  confidence  and 
generally  the  affection  of  all  persons  brought  in  contact  with 
him. 

I  never  could  explain  his  motives  to  my  own  satisfaction, 
but  I  presume  that  his  thought  was  much  the  same  as  that  of 
the  great  Blucher  of  Prussia.  He  had  a  theory  that  there  were 
only  two  kinds  of  men  in  the  world,  those  whom  we  might 
call  thoroughbreds  and  those  who  might  be  rated  under  the 
general  term  of  mustangs ;  that  the  first  were  entitled  to  all 
courtesies  because  of  the  blood  in  their  veins,  no  matter  what 
might  be  their  personal  foibles ;  the  others  as  not  worth  dis- 
cussing pedigrees  with.  He  was  a  distinguished  lawyer  in 
California,  up  in  the  front  rank  with  Baker,  Randolph,  Felton, 
McAllister  and  the  rest,  and  he  maintained  his  place  when  the 
magnitude  of  the  fees  and  the  tremendous  importance  of  the 
issues  to  be  decided  drew  that  shining  galaxy  of  legal  talent 
to  the  Comstock  in  the  first  four  years  of  the  life  of  the  great 
lode. 

Then  he  was  a  most  interesting  speaker  on  any  theme, 
though  with  him  a  speech  was  always  a  serious  matter.  He 
seldom  attempted  to  mingle  the  least  humor  in  a  public  speech, 
rarely  permitting  his  imagination  any  play  in  rounding  a 
period,  or  illuminating  a  sentence.    He  depended  upon  the  cold 


TOD    ROBINSON.  101 

logic  of  truth  to  point  his  argument  and  the  perfect  logical 
rhythm  of  his  thoughts  to  kindle  men's  admiration.  Naturally 
he  was  most  effective  in  the  court-room,  one  of  the  class  that 
judges  lean  upon,  for  he  never  juggled  with  a  legal  principle 
and  never  misstated  a  legal  proposition. 

In  private  he  was  most  winsome,  and  had  a  happy  faculty 
of  asking  a  few  questions  of  a  man  that  left  an  impression 
upon  the  man  that  he  was  solicitous  about  him  and  his. 

He  had  mingled  much  with  the  world  and  was  a  shrewd 
judge  of  men  and  knew  from  what  point  to  approach  each  one. 
Inherently  he  was  a  lover  of  justice,  and  that  the  right  should 
prevail,  and  could  have  outlined  what  society  would  be  when 
men  had  lost  all  their  weaknesses,  and  all  were  striving  toward 
a  clearer  and  softer  light,  perhaps  with  as  much  vividness  as 
Starr  King  himself. 

But,  after  all,  not  one  in  a  hundred  of  his  close  friends 
ever  understood  the  ruling  trait  of  his  life,  so  carefully  did  he 
veil  it. 

He  was  at  heart  a  sublime  egotist.  I  have  read  of  a  few 
such  men,  but  he  was  the  only  one  I  ever  knew,  personally. 

A  friend  said  to  him  one  day :  "Judge,  I  came  up  from 
Carson  today.  I  was  talking  with  Chief  Justice  Bronson  of  the 
Supreme  Court  last  evening  and  he  said  to  me :  "Do  you  know 
that  the  argument  delivered  yesterday  before  the  court  by  Tod 
Robinson  was  the  most  profound  and  convincing  legal  argu- 
ment I  ever  listened  to?" 

With  an  air  of  perfect  conviction  and  candor,  Robinson 
simply  replied  :    "It  was." 

Does  not  that  remind  one  of  what  William  Pinkney  said 
of  the  great  Samuel  Dexter,  the  marvelous  Massachusetts 
lawyer  ? 

Dexter  was  one  day  replying  in  the  Supreme  Court  to 
Rush  when  Rush,  turning  to  Pinkney,  said:  "That  is  a  very 
able  argument,"  when  Pinkney  simply  responded :  "Wait  till 
you  hear  me." 

But  egotism  has  been  a  trait  in  many  a  great  mind.  Tlie 
Earl  of  Normandy  made  a  speech  in  parliament  which  the 
Edinburg  Review  praised  highly,  whereupon  Brougham  wrote 


102  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

the  editor  of  the  Reviezv,  saying :  "The  speech  was  very  good, 
only  that  it  should  have  been  less  praised,"  adding :  "He  is  an 
excellent  fellow,  and  deserves  great  credit;  but,  truth  to  tell, 
his  speech  was  a  failure — so  much  so  that  I  was  forced  to  bear 
down  to  his  assistance." 

But  Mr.  Robinson's  self-esteem  seemed  to  be  unconscious. 
It  was  like  that  of  Daniel  Webster,  who  never  seemed  conscious 
of  anything  like  vanity,  but  who  one  day  attacked  a  legal  prop- 
osition of  an  opponent  at  the  bar,  and  was  reminded  that  he 
was  assailing  a  dictum  of  Lord  Camden.  He  simply  turned  to 
the  court  and  delivered  a  wonderful  eulogy  upon  Lord  Cam- 
den's greatness  as  a  jurist,  which  electrified  the  court  and  bar, 
but  then,  in  his  profound  way,  added :  "But,  may  it  please 
your  honor,  I  differ  from  Lord  Camden."  Even  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson possessed  that  trait;  John  Adams  had  it  stronger  than 
Jefferson,  while  with  John  Ouincy  Adams  it  was  almost  a 
disease,  and  if  we  go  further  back,  the  Apostle  Paul  could 
have  held  his  own  with  old  Tom  Benton  himself. 

If  Tod  Robinson  was  conscious  of  any  such  trait,  it  never 
appeared  in  his  public  utterances,  either  at  the  bar  or  on  the 
rostrum.  He  always  talked  to  his  theme  and  never  forgot  for 
a  moment  that  it  was  the  theme  and  not  himself  that  the  court, 
or  the  jury,  or  the  audience  desired  to  have  elucidated. 

And  while  he  was  fierce  and  bitter  in  his  political  views, 
by  inheritance  and  training,  he  was  a  fervent  apostle  of  order 
and  law.  The  vigilance  committee  of  1856,  he  was  furious 
over,  declaring  that  the  committee  was  taking  advantage  of 
their  own  wrong ;  that  had  they  not  shirked  their  duties  as  cit- 
izens of  a  free  country,  as  voters  and  jurors,  the  trouble  would 
never  have  been  forced  upon  the  city  of  San  Francisco  to  its 
disgrace  and  the  disgrace  of  the  Golden  State. 

He  was  not  like  Mount  Shasta,  springing  from  the  valley, 
thus  making  his  summit  seem  higher  than  it  really  was,  but 
more  like  Mount  Whitney,  which  rising  amid  surrounding 
peaks,  is  dwarfed  a  little  by  those  peaks  until  tested  by  a  per- 
fect instrument  which  reveals  its  sovereio-n  majestv. 


W.  C.  RALSTON. 

TO  ONE  who  has  any  soul,  who  knew  him  weh,  the  men- 
tion of  the  name  of  W.  C.  Ralston  brings  a  sense  of 
sorrow.  From  the  early  days  until  he  died  he  was  more 
to  San  Francisco  than  any  other  man. 

He  had  a  masterful  brain,  an  unquenchable  public  spirit. 
Had  he  been  Aladdin  he  would  have  covered  the  sand  hills  of 
San  Francisco  with  palaces  and  the  sea  outside  with  regal 
ships.  Not  being  an  Aladdin,  he  seemed  determined  to  rival 
him  so  far  as  human  genius  and  energy  could. 

When  I  saw  him  first  he  was  the  agent  of  a  steamship 
company  in  Panama.  It  was  in  the  early  fifties.  He  soon  out- 
grew those  surroundings  and  came  to  San  Francisco.  The  air 
of  the  Golden  Coast  was  elixir  to  him.  He  attracted  only  local 
notice  until,  through  his  ability  and  energy,  he  founded  the 
Bank  of  California. 

The  late  D.  O.  Mills  had  made  a  little  fortune  buying  gold 
dust  in  southern  California — at  San  Andreas,  I  believe — then 
had  established  a  bank  at  Sacramento;  and  bore  a  high  name  as 
a  shrewd,  capable,  careful  and  honest  banker.  To  give  the  new 
bank  strength  Ralston  had  his  associates  invite  him  to  the  pres- 
idency of  the  California  bank;  Ralston  to  be  the  immediate 
local  manager.  The  bank  soon  obtained  the  absolute  confi- 
dence of  Californians.  and  swiftly  grew  into  a  great  financial 
institution.  It  had  the  best  of  the  local  patronage,  and  through 
it  the  Oriental  and  Australian  business  was  transacted. 

Through  Ralston  many  new  industries  sprang  up  in  San 
Francisco :  through  him,  in  the  early  sixties,  Mr.  Sharon  was 
able  to  establish  the  Branch  Bank  of  California  in  Virginia 
City.  Nevada,  and  through  him  was  able  to  maintain  it  there 
when  D.  O.  Mills  insisted  that  it  should  be  closed,  as  he  did  not 
approve  of  Sharon's  management. 

A  little  later  the  great  lode  began  to  vindicate  Sharon's 
judgment,   and  within  ten  years  had  made  Mr.   Mills  more 


104  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

money  than  he  had  ever  dreamed  of  possessing.  Indeed,  it 
made  the  whole  coast  dizzy.  Its  effect  upon  \\.  C.  Ralston 
quickened  his  old  desire  for  a  great  city  on  San  Francisco  bay 
into  a  passion.  He  bought  realty,  opened  new  streets,  built 
new  structures,  and  plunged  deeper  than  a  banker,  who  is  cus- 
todian of  others  people's  money,  ever  should. 

Then  he  had  another  habit.  If  a  man  presented  a  scheme 
to  him  which  was  backed  by  full  and  reliable  reports,  he  had  a 
habit  of  saying,  "Your  scheme  looks  good ;  but  my  time  is  all 

occupied  with  the  business  ot  this  bank.    You  go  and  see , 

or ;  lay  your  proposition  before  him  and  then  tell  him  to 

call  on  me  and  explain  it  to  me."  How  many  such  enterprises 
he  put  upon  their  feet,  no  one  knows.  I  recall  one  in  partic- 
ular. The  late  Ike  Bateman  had  a  bond  on  the  Northern  Belle 
mine  at  Candelaria.  He  went  to  Ralston,  Ralston  sent  him  to 
General  Dodge.  The  resu^.t  was  that  in  a  day  or  two  Dodge 
had  bought  and  paid  for  the  mine  and  proceeded  at  once  to 
erect  a  great  mill,  though  before  that  he  was  not  known  to  have 
any  money.  He  made  a  great  fortune  from  it  in  the  succeed- 
ing three  years  and  passed  for  a  shrewd  operator,  while  Ral- 
ston's  name  was  not  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  enter- 
prise. 

But  Bonanzas  are  worked  out  after  a  while,  and  the  de- 
cline of  the  Comstock  began  just  when  the  critical  time  came 
in  the  working  out  of  several  of  Mr.  Ralston's  problems  in  San 
Francisco,  and  when  immense  sums  had  to  be  provided.  The 
indomitable  man  struggled  against  the  inevitable  for  months, 
but  finally  the  door  of  the  great  bank  had  to  be  closed. 

A  hasty  examination  of  the  accounts  was  made  and  then 
D.  O.  Mills,  in  his  mathematically  correct  business  way,  went 
into  Mr.  Ralston's  private  room  in  the  bank  and  in  his  tone  of 
icy  correctness  demanded  that  he  should  resign  his  official 
position  in  the  bank.  Without  a  word  the  strong  man  wrote 
out  his  resignation ;  then  left  the  bank  from  the  Sansome  street 
side,  walked  rapidly  to  North  Beach ;  was  seen  to  swallow  a 
white  powder  and  then  sprang  ofT  the  wharf  into  the  water, 
and  a  little  later  his  lifeless  body  was  recovered. 

Then  a  great  wave  of  pity  swept  over  San  Francisc(~). 


W.  C.  RALSTON.  105 

Those  who  had  blamed  him  for  the  bank's  faikire,  reahzing 
what  he  had  done  for  the  city  and  all  its  people,  wept  like  chil- 
dren.   But  their  tears  *no  longer  disturbed  his  calm. 

He  was  quite  six  feet  in  height ;  carried  a  great  head  on 
ample  shoulders,  and  must  have  weighed  two  hundred  pounds. 
He  had  regular  Roman  features  and  his  face  was  always 
lighted  and  eyes  alert.  It  was  clear,  to  watch  his  movements, 
that  he  had  a  tiger's  determination,  though  the  tiger  was  much 
more  given  to  purring  than  growling,  and  that  he  was  driven 
on  by  an  insatiable  energy  and  supported  by  a  hopeful  soul  that 
nothing  but  the  last  overwhelming  disaster  could  quench. 

In  his  social  life  he  was  geniality  itself  and  was  lavish  in 
his  generosity.  One  sample  will  give  an  idea  of  his  ways : 
When  Senator  Nye  of  Nevada  was  finally  denied  a  re-election. 
a  few  gentlemen  met  on  some  business  in  the  bank  in  San 
Francisco.  After  the  business  was  transacted  and  general  con- 
versation began,  one  of  those  present  said :  "I  am  sorry  for 
old  man  Nye.  He  is  old  and  poor  and  now  his  office  has  been 
taken  from  him ;  he  is  too  old  to  renew  the  practice  of  law ;  on 
my  soul  I  am  sorry  for  him." 

While  the  gentleman  was  talking  Ralston  swung  'round 
to  his  desk,  picked  up  a  pen,  wrote  a  few  lines ;  then  tearing 
off  the  paper  he  had  been  writing  upon,  he  held  up  a  check  and 
said  :  "I  am  sorry  ten  thousand  dollars'  worth ;  how  much  are 
you?"  In  twelve  minutes  $100,000  was  raised  and  given  to 
the  old  Senator.  He  sailed  for  the  East  on  the  next  steamer, 
and  the  next  heard  of  him,  he  was  wandering,  dazed,  in  a  street 
in  Richmond,  Va.     He  died  a  few  months  later  in  an  asylum. 

When  Mr.  Ralston  died,  the  great  clergyman.  Dr.  T. 
Campbell  Shorb,  said  of  him : 

"The  loss  is  a  great  indescribable  calamity  to  the  State. 
Had  I  the  power  I  would  drape  California  in  the  blackest  crepe 
from  Siskiyou  to  San  Diego,  for  he  has  left  us  who  made  Cali- 
fornia a  synonym  for  princely  hospitality  and  generosity  to  the 
uttermost  bounds  of  the  universe.  His  most  fitting,  touching 
and  eloquent  eulogy  was  pronounced  in  the  question  asked  in 
every  street  of  San  Francisco:  'Who  shall  take  his  place?' 
His  heart  was  large  as  the  mountain ;  he  was  noble,  generous 


106  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

and  true ;  his  friendship  unwavering.  Honor,  unfailing  honor 
to  his  memory;  peace,  everlasting  peace  to  his  soul." 

We  copy,  too,  a  few  words  from  the  eulogy  which  Hon. 
Thomas  Fitch  pronounced  at  this  funeral : 

"His  eulogy  is  written  on  ten  thousand  hearts.  Com- 
merce commemorates  his  deeds  with  her  whitening  sails  and 
lier  laden  wharves.  Philanthropy  rings  the  chimes  of  all  public 
charities  in  attestation  of  his  munificence.  Patriotism  rings 
paeons  for  him  who,  in  the  hour  of  the  nation's  struggle,  sent 
the  ringing  gold  of  mercy  to  chime  with  the  flashing  steel  of 
valor.  Unnumbered  deeds  of  private  generosity  attest  his 
secret  munificence.  Sorrow  found  solace  in  his  deeds.  De- 
spair has  been  lifted  into  hope  by  his  voice.  There  are  churches 
Avhose  heaven-kissing  spires  chronicle  his  donations;  schools 
claim  him  as  their  patron ;  hospitals  own  him  as  their  benefac- 
tor. He  was  the  supporter  of  art ;  science  leaned  on  him  while 
her  vision  swept  infinitely.  The  footsteps  of  progress  have 
been  sandaled  with  his  silver.  He  has  upheld  invention  while 
she  wrestled  with  the  forces  of  nature.  He  was  the  life-blood 
of  enterprise ;  he  was  the  vigor  of  all  progress ;  he  was  the  epi- 
tome and  representative  of  all  that  was  broadening  and  expan- 
sive and  uplifting  in  the  life  of  California." 

By  the  strict  rules  of  business  the  fate  of  Mr.  Ralston  was 
just.  In  a  place  of  great  trust  he  had  used  other  men's  money 
in  a  way  to  cause  its  probable  loss,  and  it  would  be  a  slander 
to  say  he  did  not  realize  the  possible  consequences  when  he 
did  it. 

But  no  one  who  knew  him  ever  believed  that  he  meditated 
any  wrong.  He  had  often  gambled  in  stocks  and  believed  he 
could  pull  through.  Four  years  previously  Mr.  Sharon  had 
loaned  him  $4,000,000  in  just  such  an  emergency,  and  his 
over-sanguine  nature  urged  him  on.  When  he  finally  failed 
he  made  no  appeals  for  help.  He  said  to  himself:  "I  can 
make  but  one  atonement,"  so  he  sprang  into  the  bay.  May  the 
grand  things  he  did  in  life  plead  for  charity  to  his  memory. 


GEORGE  C.  GORHAM. 

HE  WENT  to  California  with  the  Argonauts,  a  boy  of 
perhaps  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  of  age.  He  was 
always  small,  about  five  feet  eight  inches  in  height, 
fair  and  slim.  In  personal  appearance  he  resembled  ex-Senator 
and  ex-Secretary  of  War  Chandler  of  New  Hampshire  more 
than  any  other  man  that  I  ever  met.  He  resembled  also  the 
picture  of  Marshall  Ney  of  France. 

He  was  brighter  than  any  of  those  around  him ;  he  could 
write  and  talk,  and,  when  the  occasion  required,  he  could  par- 
alyze those  near  him  by  his  audacity.  A  sample  of  this  was 
shown  just  after  he  reached  Marysville,  where  he  went  imme- 
diately on  his  arrival  in  California. 

He  was  poor  and  had  to  find  something  through  which 
to  make  a  living,  so  in  some  way  obtained  an  appointment  as 
notary  public.  Titles  were  being  changed  every  day  and  ac- 
knowledgments had  to  be  made.  In  his  business  he  naturally 
got  to  know  all  the  city  officers.  A  primitive  circus  came  to 
town  and  the  manager  applied  to  the  sheriff  for  a  license.  The 
sheriff  was  Mike  Gray.  He  had  been  a  Texan  ranger,  lieu- 
tenant under  and  close  friend  of  Jack  Hayes,  the  famous  one. 
He  was  as  brave  a  man  as  ever  lived.  A  man  on  the  street 
shot  at  him  while  he  was  seated  in  a  buggy.  He  jumped  from 
his  buggy  on  the  right  side  of  his  horse,  caught  the  horse  by 
the  bit,  swung  around  the  horse's  head  to  the  left  side,  facing 
the  advancing  man,  who  was  trying  to  revolve  his  pistol,  which 
a  broken  cap  clogged,  and,  drawing  a  derringer  pistol  from  his 
vest  pocket.  Gray  killed  the  man.  That  evening  a  friend  asked 
Gray  what  other  weapons  he  had,  and  he  replied :  "Not  a 
thing."  The  friend  said,  "You  should  not  go  about  that  way. 
Vnn  are  an  officer,  dealing  with  thugs  every  day,  and  you 
should  not  go  around  with  nothing  but  a  four-inch  derringer 
on."  Gray  thought  a  moment  and  then  said:  "That's  a  fact; 
there  might  be  more  than  one  of  them  next  time."     The  idea 


108  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

that  a  single  barrel  derringer  would  not  be  enough  for  one 
man  never  crossed  his  mind. 

But  he  was  as  genial  and  jolly  as  he  was  cool  and  self- 
contained.  So  when  the  circus  man  appealed  to  him  for  a 
license  he  heard  his  story,  then  asked  him  what  kind  of  a  circus 
he  had.  The  man  explained.  'Tt's  a  good  show,  is  it?"  was 
Gray's  next  inquiry.  The  man  replied  that  it  was  a  good  little 
show  for  California  and  worth  the  money.  Then  Gray  asked 
him  how  $2,000  for  a  license  would  appeal  to  him. 

The  man  answered  that  he  could  not  think  of  that  unless 
the  sheriff  would  take  his  circus  in  part  payment.  After  ban- 
tering the  poor  fellow  long  enough,  Gray  said :  "Why,  of 
course  the  boys  will  want  to  see  it.  Go  ahead,  and  never  mind 
about  the  license!" 

The  man  was  grateful,  and  after  thanking  the  sheriff  told 
him  to  come  with  his  deputies,  to  announce  to  the  man  at  the 
door  who  he  w^as  and  who  his  subordinates  were  and  they 
would  be  shown  in. 

Gorham  heard  of  this,  went  to  Gray  and  offered  to  attend 
the  circus  in  Gray's  stead.  When  Gray  declined  the  offer. 
Gorham  insisted  that  he  must  see  that  show  and  could  not 
afford  to  put  up  for  a  ticket.  Gray  explained  that  the  oft'er 
included  only  himself  and  his  deputies  and  if  he  named  a  little 
shrimp  like  George  as  a  deputy,  the  circus  man  would  know 
he  was  lying  and  put  the  whole  bunch  out. 

Gorham  was  still  for  a  second,  then  said :  "You  don't 
mind  my  following  your  disreputable  procession  when  you  go 
to  the  circus,  do  you?"  Gray  laughingly  replied  that  he  had 
followed  a  good  many  tough  citizens  in  his  time,  and  would 
not  mind  if  one  followed  him. 

A  few  days  prior  to  this,  Gorham  had  become  a  clerk  of 
Stephen  J.  Field  who  later  became  a  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  California  and  later  still  was  for  more  than  thirty 
years  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

The  day  of  the  circus  came  and  Gorham  was  at  the  sher- 
iff's office  at  the  right  time.  Arriving  at  the  tent.  Gray  an- 
nounced himself  sheriff  and  passed  in,  then  was  followed  by 
the  office  sheriff'  and  two  or  three  deputies,  and  then  came  Gor- 


GEORGE  C.  GOREIAM.  109 

ham.  He  did  not  pause  in  his  walk,  but  as  he  reached  the  door- 
keeper, he,  in  a  hoarse  whisper,  hissed,  "Estoy  Secretaris  del 
Alcalde  et  notarius  publico,"  in  his  ear  and  passed  in.  Once 
inside,  Gray  asked  him  how  he  made  it.  Gorham  replied :  "He 
let  you  fellows  in  because  you  were  just  common  officials  ;  when 
I  mentioned  my  title  to  him,  he  thought  the  Alcalde  was  my 
clerk  and  was  overcome  by  the  honor  of  my  presence."  Gray 
said:  "Your  Spanish  must  have  hit  him  hard."  With  a  laugh 
Gorham  replied  :    "Hard?    It  was  a  knockout." 

Justice  Field,  in  his  book,  tells  how  Gorham  became  his 
clerk,  as  follows : 

"One  day  while  I  was  Alcalde,  a  bright-looking  lad 
with  red  cheeks  and  apparently  about  seventeen  years  of  age 
came  into  the  office  and  asked  if  I  did  not  want  a  clerk.  I  said 
I  did.  and  would  willingly  give  $200  a  month  for  a  good  one ; 
but  that  I  had  written  to  Sacramento  and  was  expecting  one 
from  there.  The  young  man  suggested  that  perhaps  the  one 
from  Sacramento  would  not  come,  or  might  be  delayed,  and 
that  he  would  like  to  take  the  place  in  the  meanwhile.  I  replied  : 
Very  well,  if  he  was  willing  to  act  until  the  other  arrived,  he 
might.    Thereupon  he  took  hold  and  commenced  work. 

"Three  days  afterwards  the  man  from  Sacramento  arrived, 
but  in  the  meantime  I  had  become  so  much  pleased  with  the 
brightness  and  quickness  of  the  young  clerk  that  I  could  not 
part  with  him.  That  young  clerk  was  George  C.  Gorham,  the 
present  (1877)  secretary  of  the  Senate.  His  quickness  of 
comprehension  was  really  w^onderful.  Give  him  half  an 
idea  of  what  was  wanted  and  he  would  complete  it,  as 
it  were,  by  intuition.  I  remember  on  one  occasion  he  wanted 
to  know  what  was  necessary  for  a  marriage  settlement.  I 
asked  him  why.  He  replied  that  he  had  been  employed  by 
a  French  lady  to  prepare  such  a  settlement,  and  was  to  receive 
twenty-five  dollars  for  the  instrument.  I  gave  him  some  sug- 
gestions, but  added  that  he  had  better  let  me  see  the  document 
after  he  had  written  it.  In  a  short  time  afterwards  he  brought 
it  to  me,  and  I  was  astonished  to  find  it  nearly  perfect.  There 
was  only  one  correction  to  make.  And  thus  ready  I  alwavs 
found  him.    With  the  most  general  directions  he  would  execute 


110  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

anything  committed  to  his  charge,  and  usually  with  perfect 
correctness. 

"When  I  went  upon  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court,  I  ap- 
pointed him  clerk  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States 
for  the  District  of  California,  and  with  the  exception  of  the 
period  during  which  he  acted  as  Secretary  of  Governor  Low, 
he  remained  as  such  clerk  until  he  was  nominated  for  the  office 
of  Governor  of  the  State." 

The  truth  is,  that  Gorham  knew  more  politics  than  Field 
and  Low  combined,  and  it  was  Gorham  that  secured  the  nom- 
ination of  Field  for  Supreme  Judge  of  California,  and  the  nom- 
ination of  Low-  for  Governor.  \Mien  he  himself  was  nominated 
for  Governor,  he  should  have  been  elected  and  W'Ould  have 
been  except  for  two  things.  When  the  old  Central  Pacific 
Railroad  Company  obtained  its  government  money  subsidy,  it 
will  be  remembered  that  when  the  road  should  leave  the  valley 
and  enter  the  foothills,  the  subsidy  was  to  be  doubled.  \\'ell, 
Gorham  went  to  Washington  and  had  the  foothills  moved  down 
to  within  twelve  miles  of  Sacramento.  So  when  he  was  nom- 
inated for  Governor,  it  was  charged  that  he  w^as  a  railroad 
candidate. 

Then  General  Bidwell  had  just  ploughed  up  his  vineyard, 
and  in  the  temperance  move  that  was  then  sweeping  over  Cali- 
fornia, was  nominated  for  Governor.  All  the  votes  he  obtained 
were  drawn  from  Gorham,  and  the  Democratic  candidate  was 
elected.  California  made  a  mistake.  Gorham  would  have  made 
a  most  brilliant  Governor  and  one  of  the  most  far-sighted  and 
honest  Governors  the  State  would  ever  have  had. 

The  night  after  he  was  nominated,  the  Republican  State 
central  committee  called  upon  him  and  asked  him  to  write  an 
address  to  Republican  voters,  and  said  they  wanted  it,  if  pos- 
sible, within  a  w^eek.  He  bade  them  be  seated,  turned  to  his 
desk  and  began  to  write.  Meanwhile  his  little  boy  was  climbing 
upon  and  playing  horse  on  the  back  of  his  chair.  In  forty 
minutes  he  gathered  up  the  sheets  and,  handing  them  to  the 
chairman,  said :  'Publish  that ;  it  w' ill  answer  in  a  campaign 
as  well  as  a  carefully  prepared  paper." 

It  was  perfect,  and  just  exactly  covered  the  case. 


GEORGE  C.  GORHAM.  Ill 

I  think  it  was  Stewart  and  Nye,  senators  from  Nevada, 
who  obtained  his  appointment  as  secretary  of  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States.  He  held  the  office  for  many  years — eighteen,  I 
believe — and  was  a  walking  encyclopedia  for  that  body. 

He  was  always  most  courteous,  but  his  quiet  criticisms  of 
some  bumptious  senators  were  delicious  to  listen  to.  He  was 
in  full  accord  with  the  stalwarts  of  both  parties,  but  he  never 
liked  Sumner.  He  said,  one  day,  of  him:  "Why,  the  old 
fraud,  counting  on  our  ignorance,  talks  bad  Latin  in  his 
speeches."  He  was  always  a  stalwart.  There  were  as  many 
Democrats  as  Republicans  in  Marysville,  California,  in  1861. 
But  when  Washington's  anniversary  came,  Gorham  procured 
a  large  mackerel,  and,  going  into  the  saloon  Eldorado,  where 
many  Democrats  congregated,  he  went  from  one  to  another 
and,  holding  up  the  mackerel,  said:  "Take  a  whiff  of  that! 
From  this  time  on,  it  is  to  be  the  American  eagle." 

Had  anyone  else  tried  the  same  thing,  he  would  have  been 
killed. 

I  saw  Gorham  at  the  Willard  in  Washington  just  after 
a  Democrat  had  succeeded  him  as  secretary  of  the  Senate.  He 
said :  "I  could  have  been  Governor  of  California  and  would 
have  been  had  not  one  who  was  under  great  obligations  to  me 
betrayed  me.  I  might  have  been  Senator.  It  was  offered  me, 
but  I  put  it  by  for  a  friend  who  wanted  it  more  than  I  did.  I 
have  helped  a  good  many  friends  to  get  office ;  I  have  enabled  a 
good  many  other  friends  to  get  rich ;  I  have  distributed  more 
than  $3,000,000  since  I  became  secretary  of  the  Senate,  but 
my  accounts  have  exactly  balanced,  and  I  am  going  to  New 
York  today  to  begin  work  to  support  my  little  family,  and 
listen  !  I  do  not  take  a  regret  with  me,  for  I  have  done  the  best 
I  could." 

Later,  he  wrote  the  life  of  Secretary  Stanton  and  per- 
formed much  other  literary  work.  Some  months  ago,  I  heard 
he  was  dead,  and  I  said  then  as  I  say  now,  "Poor  George, 
the  world  will  never  know  how  high  of  soul,  how  clean  and 
true  and  great  he  really  was." 


THOMAS  STARR  KING. 

ALL  the  men  of  whom  I  have  spoken  in  this  series  of 
reminiscences  had  within  them  more  or  less  of  the  earth 
earthy.  •  Thomas  Starr  King-  had  not  enough  of  base 
metal  in  his  nature  to  hold  his  spirit  long  in  this  world.  Gold 
has  to  be  alloyed  with  a  harder  metal  to  endure  the  attrition  of 
daily  use.  There  was  no  alloy  in  Starr  King,  and  he  was 
quickly  worn  out. 

He  weighed,  I  judge,  about  one  hundred  and  forty  pounds. 
He  was  slight  and  fair,  but  the  head  above  his  shoulders  wasJ 
a  royal  one ;  the  face  a  sovereign  one,  and  notwithstanding  hisj 
delicate  appearance,  his  voice  held  within  it  all  the  sweetness 
of  the  harp  when  struck  by  a  master  hand,  all  the  power  and 
solemn  grandeur  of  a  great  cathedral  organ.  He  had,  more- 
over, that  subtle  magnetism  which  drew  and  retained  his  audi- 
ence while  he  talked.  But  his  was  never  a  dress  parade  elo- 
quence. It  was,  after  all,  the  thoughts  behind  his  words  that 
held  men  and  women  captive  while  he  spoke;  the  thoughts 
and  words  and  that  majesty  which  comes  from  the  soul  of 
some  men,  maybe  once  in  a  century.  Listening  to  him  one 
thought  involuntarily  of  the  statement  that  when  the  Master 
was  in  the  Garden  by  the  brook  Kidron,  the  soldiers  came  to 
arrest  him  and  when  they  told  him  whom  they  sought  and  he  re- 
plied :  *T  am  He,"  they  walked  backward  and  fell  to  the  ground. 

He  was  of  New  England's  bluest  blood.  He  was  denied 
a  university  training.  His  father,  a  clergyman,  had  prepared 
him  for  college,  but  when  the  boy  was  fifteen  years  of  age  the 
father  suddenly  died  and  the  care  of  the  mother  and  younger 
children,  turned  him  to  labor  for  them.  He  worked  as  a  clerk, 
then  as  a  teacher. 

But  while  the  training  of  his  brain  in  the  schools  was  for 
the  time  arrested,  his  soul  was  growing  and  at  nineteen  he 
began  to  preach.  The  recognition  of  his  genius  was  instanta- 
neous. He  was  wanted  everywhere,  and  for  eleven  years  he 
held  New  Eno-land  enthralled.     Boston  had  claimed  him  and 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  113 

counted  on  him  as  one  of  that  royal  circle  which  half  a  cen- 
tury and  more  ago  was  an  intellectual  Aurora  Borealis  in  that 
northern  latitude  of  New  England. 

He  was  a  Unitarian  minister  and  Edward  Everett  Plale 
was  a  foster  father  to  him. 

While  young  in  his  ministry  a  great  longing  for  the  west 
came  upon  him,  and  amid  the  sorrow  and  good  wishes  of  the 
highest  in  Boston  intellectual  circles,  he  sailed  for  California. 
\\'hen  he  landed  in  San  Francisco,  though  few  knew  the  fact, 
it  was  really  the  coming  of  an  apostle  of  religion  and  an  evangel 
of  patriotism.  A  pulpit  was  waiting  for  him,  and  his  first 
sermon  made  clear  that  the  w^est  coast  had  gained  a  treasure 
richer  than  any  in  her  mines,  for  from  the  first,  men  instinct- 
ively felt  that  behind  all  that  he  said,  there  was  a  character  so 
lofty  that  it  was  interwoven  into  the  very  texture  of  the  man 
himself ;  a  something  which  was  as  much  a  part  of  the  man  as 
were  his  vocal  chords  or  as  was  the  blood  in  his  arteries. 

He  preached  and  lectured,  and  wrote,  and  grew  constantly 
in  public  estimation — he  was  a  light  to  the  west  coast,  for 
every  man  was  his  brother  in  his  own  estimation,  and  it  was  his 
duty  to  hold  up  the  hands  of  his  fellows  and  to  affirm  the  mercv 
and  glory  of  God. 

With  the  coming  of  the  great  Civil  war  he  was  strangely 
agitated.  How  native  land  was  to  be  saved  in  its  entirety; 
how  the  old  love  and  trust  were  to  be  wooed  back  were  prob- 
lems that  exercised  his  mind  continually. 

When  the  scheme  to  raise  money  to  purchase  comforts  and 
medicines  for  the  soldiers  and  to  pay  nurses  for  attending 
upon  the  sick  and  the  wounded  was  broached,  he  became  its 
instant  advocate,  and  to  further  it  he  lectured  through  the 
Pacific  states.  He  drew  all  classes  to  those  lectures  until  his 
fame,  which  had  been,  in  most  part,  confined  to  San  Francisco 
and  surrounding  towns,  filled  the  whole -coast.  His  travels, 
too,  gave  him  every  day  new  scenes  from  which  to  draw  illus- 
trations. 

It  is  presumptious  to  try  to  give  an  idea  of  his  style  or 
his  methods  on  the  rostrum,  l)ut  we  will  relate  one  incident. 
He  was  delivering  a  lecture  in  Carson  City,  Nevada,  for  the 


114 


AS  I  REAIEMBER  THEM. 


benefit  of  the  sanitary  fund.  He  finally,  in  his  lecture,  as  pre- 
liminary to  an  apostrophe  to  patriotism,  told  how,  a  few  days 
before,  he  was  sailing  down  the  Columbia,  and  the  theme  of 
all  on  board  was  a  great  battle,  news  of  which  had  just  reached 
the  west  coast.  He  noticed  a  solitary  man  sitting  by  the 
rail  and  showing  no  interest  in  what  was  going  on. 

Going  over  to  him,  he  said :  "Have  you  no  interest  in  the 
tremendous  events  now  convulsing  the  country?" 

"None  at  all,"  was  the  reply,  "all  I  want  is  to  be  left 
alone." 

"Do  you  realize  that  the  life  of  the  republic  is  hanging  in 
the  balance,  and  that  your  countrymen  are  dying  by  thou- 
sands?" 

"I  have  lost  no  one.  All  I  want  is  to  be  left  alone,"  said 
the  man,  doggedly. 

"Have  you  no  love  of  country?  No  appreciation  of  the 
blessings  that  have  been  yours  all  your  life  under  the  flag  and 
the  splendor  that  it  represents?"  was  the  next  question. 

"No,  I  jist  want  to  be  let  alone,"  was  the  querulous  answer. 

Then  straightening  himself  and  stretching  outward  and 
downward  his  right  hand,  and  in  a  voice  that  thrilled  all  who 
heard  it,  Starr  King  cried  :  "And  that  abject,  cowering  wretch 
sat  there,  though  Mount  Hood  in  its  majesty  was  towering 
above  him,  and  the  Columbia  was  rolling  at  his  feet." 

It  was  not  what  he  said,  but  the  way  he  said  it  that 
thrilled  those  who  listened  and  made  them  realize  more  fully 
the  full  meaning  of  what  he  said  on  another  occasion,  which 
was : 

"The  soul  is  not  a  shadow ;  the  body  is.  Genius  is  not 
a  shadow ;  it  is  a  substance.  Patriotism  is  not  a  shadow,  it 
is  light." 

At  that  time  there  were  thousands  of  men  on  the  coast 
who  were  working  to  cause  the  secession  of  California,  Oregon 
and  Nevada,  and  to  have  them  join  the  Southern  confederacy 
or  to  organize  an  independent  Pacific  Republic.  King's 
soul  was  on  fire,  and  his  appeals  were  bugle  calls. 

In  the  lecture  field  he  sounded  all  literature  for  illustra- 
tions and  all  the  moods  of  men  were  his  to  play  upon.     Every- 


THOMAS  STARR  KING.  115 

thing  was  at  his  command,  but  there  was  thought  behind  all  his 
words.  For  instance,  how  expressive  is  this :  "He  who  com- 
poses a  poem  that  has  no  burning  thought  in  it,  is  not  so  orig- 
inal as  he  who  constructs  an  original  mouse  trap.  The  one  is 
a  mere  artisan  in  words,  the  other  an  original  thinker  in  wire 
and  wood." 

And  again  :  ''So  many  of  us  there  are  who  have  no  majes- 
tic landscapes  for  the  heart,  no  gardens  in  the  inner  life!  We 
live  on  the  flats,  in  a  country  which  is  dry,  droughty,  barren. 
We  look  up  to  no  heights  where  shadows  fall  and  streams  flow, 
singing.  We  have  no  great  hopes.  We  have  no  sense  of  infi- 
nite guard  and  care.  We  have  no  sense  of  divine,  all-enfold- 
ing love.  We  may  make  an  outward  visit  to  the  Sierras,  but 
there  are  no  Yosemites  in  the  soul." 

And  hear  this : 

''History,  until  of  late,  has  been  mostly  a  record  of  bat- 
tles, many  of  which  had  no  effect  on  society.  But  history 
truly  written  will  show  that  the  hinge-epoch  of  centuries  was 
when  no  battle  sound  was  heard  on  the  earth — when  in  Gali- 
lee One  was  uttering  sentiments  in  a  language  now  nowhere 
spoken,  never  deigning  to  write  a  line,  but  entrusting  to  the  air 
His  words.  The  Caesar,  whose  servant  ordered  His  crucifixion 
— all  the  Caesars — are  dead,  but  His  words  live  yet,  the  sub- 
stantial agents  of  civilization,  the  pillars  of  our  welfare,  the 
hope  of  the  race." 

And  again : 

"Running  up  through  the  realm  of  science  to  society,  and 
to  the  life  of  nations,  we  find  that  the  apex-truth  which  the 
intellect  discovers  is  this :  Character  is  of  supreme  impor- 
tance for  national  growth,  prosperity  and  stability.  How  im- 
pressive does  history  seem  as  a  study,  when  we  find  that  every 
country  is  a  huge  pedestal,  lifting  up  one  national  figure,  which 
symbolizes  the  prospects  and  the  perils  of  the  millions  that  dwell 
around  its  base." 

So  he  lived,  working  constantly  and  for  only  three  things 
— his  fellow  men,  his  country  and  the  glory  of  God. 

The  secret  of  his  charm  was  in  his  absolute  sincerity  and 
in  the  loftiness  of  his  character.    He  was  intensely  human  in  all 


116  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

his  acts ;  every  man  who  had  a  sorrow  was  his  brother,  but 
when  an  intellectual  field  was  to  be  explored  he  was  every- 
wdiere  a  leader ;  whenever  a  righteous  cause  needed  a  champion 
his  voice  was  loudest  and  sweetest  of  all.  He  believed  that  all 
men  should  be  educated ;  that  there  was  no  safety  to  society 
except  in  obedience  to  law ;  his  apostrophes  to  charity  in  all 
its  forms  were  sometimes  anthems,  sometimes  trumpet  calls: 
he  believed  in  full  liberty :  he  consecrated  his  life  to  duty,  and 
wore  himself  out  and  died  just  as  he  reached  the  zenith  of  his 
intellectual  power.     When  dying  he  said : 

"Do  not  weep  for  me.  T  know  it's  right.  I  wish  I  could 
make  you  feel  so.  I  wish  I  could  describe  my  feelings.  They 
are  strange !  I  feel  all  the  privileges  and  greatness  of  the  future. 
It  already  looks  grand,  beautiful." 

I  feel  that  the  forgoing  does  not  nearly  do  justice  to  the 
wonderful  man,  and  close  by  copying  the  little  poem  wdiich  Bret 
Harte  wrote,  evidently  feeling  the  same  w^ay,  to  a  pen  that  the 
great  soul  had  written  wnth : 

"This  is  the  reed  the  dead  musician  dropped. 
With  tuneful  magic  in  its  sheath  still  hidden. 
The  prompt  allegro  of  its  music  stopped. 
Its  melodies  unbidden. 

"But  who  shall  finish  the  unfinished  strain. 

Or  wake  the  instruments  to  awe  and  wonder, 
And  bid  the  slender  barrel  breath  again — 
An  organ-pipe  of  thunder? 

"His  pen  !    What  haunting  memories  cling  about 

Its  golden  curves !  What  shapes  and  laughing  graces 
Slipped  from  its  point,  when  his  full  heart  went  out 
In  smiles  and  courtly  phrases ! 

"The  truth,  half  jesting,  half  in  earnest,  flung; 
The  word  of  cheer,  with  recognition  in  it ; 
The  note  of  alms,  whose  golden  speech  outrung 
The  golden  gift  within  it. 

"But  all  in  vain  the  enchanter's  wand  we  wave ; 

No  stroke  of  ours  recalls  its  magic  vision ; 
The  incantation  that  its  power  gave 
Sleeps  with  the  dead  magician." 


THE  OLD  BOYS. 

THE  old  California  days  are  always  coming  back  upon 
me  in  thought,  and  perhaps  it  will  not  be  unwelcome  if 
I  devote  a  chapter  to  the  old  boys.  California  was  not 
settled  like  any  other  state.  As  late  as  1848  the  United  States 
was  a  poor  country  in  wealth.  It  was  rated  a  little  higher  than 
Turkey,  not  much  above  Spain  in  its  material  wealth. 

At  that  time  the  Sacramento,  the  American,  the  Feather, 
the  Yuba,  the  Stanislaus,  the  Merced,  the  San  Joaquin  and  the 
other  rivers  were  flowing  on  and  on,  serene  and  unvexed,  to 
the  sea.  Their  banks  had  never  been  disturbed  by  the  pros- 
pector's tread. 

But  the  hour  came  at  length  when  the  nation  was  to  ad- 
vance to  a  higher  plane,  about  to  take  up  a  new  station  among 
the  earth's  nations ;  and  treasures  were  needed  for  that  forward 
march ;  so  they  were  released. 

In  those  first  days  California  was  fairyland.  It  was  beau- 
tiful beyond  description.  Nature  seemed  to  have  gathered 
there  all  her  glories.  The  mountains  were  a  rugged  back- 
ground for  pictures  such  as  angels  might  have  painted  with 
the  brushes  of  the  Infinite,  with  dyes  from  the  very  fountains 
of  light. 

The  valleys  were  carpeted  with  flowers,  the  mountains 
looked  up  to  from  the  valleys  were  azure  until  where  the 
higher  range  asserted  itself — there  their  brows  were  white  as 
a  planet's  light. 

The  air  was  soft  and  sweet,  and  came  to  the  faces  of  men 
like  a  caress.     The  sunlight  was  the  crowning  glory. 

Sun-kissed  seas  smote  all  the  long  coast ;  the  mountain 
tops  were  crowned  with  such  forests  as  the  newcomers  had 
never  beheld,  never  dreamed  of  before,  while  over  real  golden 
sands  the  rivers  followed  their  channels  to  the  sea. 

Such  was  the  land  that  greeted  the  newcomers,  and  in 
such  a  land  nothing  seemed  impossible  save  man's  capacity  to 
grasp  the  opportunities  before  and  around  him,  to  dare  to  reach 


118  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

for  and  seize  the  triumphs  which  Hope  painted  on  the  retinas 
of  brave  eyes. 

The  people  who  were  gathered  there  were  the  pick  of  the 
world.  Young  men  were  in  the  majority,  every  state  was 
represented  and  the  outside  world  supplied  its  cjuota.  There 
were  some  bad  men,  of  course.  I  have  seen  a  coyote  among 
the  orange  groves  of  Riverside. 

What  a  broadening  of  horizons  came  then,  and  to  hearts 
what  a  melting  away  of  prejudices  was  experienced ;  how  the 
innate  divinity  in  royal  souls  shone  out. 

Besides  the  young  there  were  older  ones,  those  who  had 
fled  from  the  narrowness  and  poverty  that  had  bound  their 
lives  from  the  cradle  up.  Some  had  fled  from  unhappy  homes 
where,  illy-mated  at  first,  the  cramped  environment  had  added 
heart-breaking  cares  to  original  disappointments.  Others  had 
left  happy  homes,  except  that  mouths  became  many  and 
rewards  few,  so  they  had  been  forced  to  follow  a  vision  of 
enough  wealth  to  buy  for  the  loved  ones  surcease  from  trouble. 

Society  lacked  the  only  natural  leaven — the  restraints,  the 
grace,  the  benign  influence  of  pure  women,  the  music  and 
the  benediction  of  children's  voices  and  presence. 

The  effect  was  quickly  seen.  When  a  ship  loses  its  rudder 
it  falls  off  into  the  trough  of  the  sea,  and  with  every  oncoming 
wave  its  decks  are  swept.  Many  a  naturally  brave  soul  became 
reckless ;  the  vices  caught  them.  Thousands  of  lives  went  pre- 
maturely out  because  there  was  no  wife  or  mother  or  sister  or 
sweetheart  to  steady  them  with  a  reproachful  look,  or  cheer 
them  when  the  world's  buffetings  made  them  despair. 

But  there  was  an  empire  to  redeem  from  savagery,  there 
were  infinite  mountains  to  explore,  broad  valleys  to  people 
and  cultivate,  states  to  be  rounded  into  form,  and  behind  every 
other  incentive  there  was  a  promise  of  gold. 

The  coming  to  the  new  land  had  chastened  the  people. 
Whether  by  way  of  the  plains,  by  sail  ship  around  the  conti- 
nent, or  by  the  charnal  ships  that  came  and  went  to  and  from 
the  Isthmus,  it  mattered  not.  There  was  suffering  enough  to 
make  men  thoughtful  and  considerate,  to  engender  gratitude 
for  a  land  which  offered  so  much  and  was  so  beautiful.    There 


THE  OLD  BOYS.  119 

were  no  written  laws  that  men  regarded  and  it  was  then  that 
the  fashion  of  the  west  and  southwest  was  estabhshed.  Men 
held  each  other  personally  responsible  for  shortcomings,  and 
the  result  was  not  so  bad.  There  is  a  class  of  men  needing 
control  that  is  better  controlled  in  that  way  than  in  any  other. 

As  the  hosts  increased  the  old  enlightened  instinct  asserted 
itself.  There  were  offenses  that  individuals  without  authority 
could  not  follow  to  conviction  and  punishment.  The  need  of 
laying  the  foundation  of  society  where  order  could  be  main- 
tained and  laws  enforced  was  soon  apparent  and  generally 
accepted.  Of  course,  the  country  was  supposed  to  be  under 
military  rule,  into  which  some  civil  forms  had  been  injected, 
but  in  the  mining  camps  something  more  was  needed. 

With  Anglo-Saxon  directness  the  work  was  inaugurated. 
Fortunately  there  was  no  lack  of  material  to  set  up  a  govern- 
ment to  start  it  in  motion.  No  community  ever  had  a  larger 
portion  of  educated,  trained  men.  Thus,  men  went  to  work. 
They  explored  the  hills,  they  turned  the  rivers  from  their 
natural  channels,  they  made  new  applications  of  the  engineer's 
science.  In  part,  they  adjusted  themselves  to  their  surround- 
ings— in  part  compelled  their  surroundings  to  minister  to 
them.  The  implements  that  men  work  with  they  remodeled 
to  save  weight  where  weight  was  not  needed,  to  make  their 
own  strength  avail  more  when  using  those  implements.  A 
change  came  also  in  their  characters.  The  absence  of  pure 
women  gave  them  a  higher  appreciation  of  what  a  pure  woman 
is ;  the  absence  of  children  impressed  upon  them  the  knowledge 
that  a  world  without  children  would  not  be  worth  living  in. 
The  hardships  of  their  lives  made  them  generous  and  for- 
bearing toward  the  weak  and  unfortunate.  The  habit  of  accept- 
ing as  a  matter  of  course  everything  which  Fate  had  in  store 
for  them,  developed  in  them  a  self-reliance  which  was  superb, 
an  unpretentious  courage  which  was  sublime.  At  the  same 
time  they  acquired  a  habit  of  careless  levity  which  would  have 
made  a  stranger  think  they  had  never  felt  a  care  or  heartache 
in  their  lives. 

When  in  jovial  mood  they  were  a  race  of  rare  jokers  and 
sometimes  there  was  a  sting  in  their  words.     They  had  not 


120 


A3  I  REMEMBER  THE:M. 


much  reverence  for  the  forms  which  in  pohte  society  are  en- 
forced. A  stovepipe  hat  would  have  been  in  great  danger  in 
an  old-time  mining  camp ;  but  their  cabins  were  never  locked 
and  strangers  passing  were  expected  to  go  in  and  help  them- 
selves to  anything  they  needed  in  the  way  of  food.  But  the 
thief  who  would  take  money  or  gold  dust  or  anything  else  of 
value  was  dealt  with  in  a  way  so  decided,  expeditious  and 
thorough  that  more  than  one  man  was  kept  honest  through  the 
certain  knowledge  of  what  would  follow  if  an  offense  were 
committed.  In  those  days  a  horse  was  worth  vastly  more  than 
a  man.  That  is,  if  two  men  quarreled  and  one  was  killed,  the 
offense  was  generally  condoned;  but  woe  to  a  horse  thief  if 
ever  caught.  Of  course,  in  such  communities  a  cry  of  distress 
was  a  signal  for  universal  and  unstinted  charity,  and  it  was 
extended  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  recipient  feel  that  he  had 
conferred  a  favor  by  accepting  it. 

What  a  place  those  camps  were  for  puncturing  frauds ! 
A  pretentious  man  quickly  grew  weary  of  himself.  The  quack 
doctor  or  law^yer  was  quickly  discovered  and  banished  by  ridi- 
cule ;  but  if  a  sincere  and  earnest  man  entered  a  camp,  explained 
that  he  was  a  minister  of  the  gospel  and  desired  a  place  in 
which  to  deliver  a  brief  sermon,  if  necessary  the  games  were 
all  summarily  stopped  in  the  biggest  gambling  hall  in  the  town, 
the  preacher  was  given  a  billiard  table  for  a  pulpit,  attentively 
listened  to,  when  he  had  finished  was  handsomely  rewarded 
and  told  when  he  came  that  way  again  to  drop  in  and 
make  himself  at  home.  When  he  was  gone  there  was  a  general 
discussion  as  to  whether  the  lead  that  the  preacher  was  follow- 
ing would  ever  end  in  the  finding  of  pay  dirt,  some  holding,  in 
the  idiom  of  the  camp,  that  the  gold  was  too  light  to  save,  or 
that  the  diggings  were  too  pockety,  or  that  there  was  too  much 
dirt  to  move  to  reach  pay  rock,  or  that  it  was  the  "Blue  Lead" 
he  was  on  without  any  certainty  of  ever  gettting  into  the  pay 
channel.  But  it  was  generally  believed  that  a  preacher  seemed 
to  be  mining  on  the  square  and  confidently  expected  to  finally 
"strike  it  big." 

Those  camps  were  veritable  bonanzas  for  theatrical  com- 
panies— unless  too  bad — that  visited  them.     A  pretty  girl  in 


THE  OLD  BOYS.  121 

the  tinsel  of  the  stage,  dancing  a  lively  hornpipe  or  Spanish 
waltz  was  sure  to  hear  falling  around  her  as  she  danced  halves 
and  dollars  until  the  stage  was  covered  with  coin.  She  brought 
back  to  the  men  vividly  the  memory  of  the  girls  they  had  left  in 
the  states  and  they  were  anxious  to  pay  her  for  the  service. 

But  there  were  great  souls  in  those  camps.  Many  later 
proved  it,  many  more  kept  still  and  those  who  see  their  graves 
in  the  valleys  or  on  the  mountains  will  never  know  their  ster- 
ling worth,  what  they  were  to  the  world,  how  splendid  were 
their  services,  how  steady  and  true  their  patriotism. 

All  those  years  men  east  and  west  saw  what  was  being 
done  in  California,  but  only  the  more  sagacious  ones  realized 
the  full  scope  of  the  work  and  progress — the  eventual  results 
that  would  follow.  It  became  a  habit  of  the  steamers  every 
fortnight  to  carry  east  two  millions  to  three  millions  of  dollars. 
The  first  effect  was  the  increased  credit  that  was  ready  to  be 
extended  to  our  country;  railroad  building  took  on  a  new 
impetus  and  the  men  of  Europe  were  willing  to  buy  American 
railroad  bonds.  In  those  days  it  was  a  habit  every  year  to  bring 
in  from  across  the  plains  large  numbers  of  eastern  horses. 
They  were  very  lean  of  flesh  upon  their  arrival  and  were  turned 
out  upon  the  rich  pastures.  When,  the  next  year,  they  were 
caught,  it  was  found  that  five-year-old  horses  had  grown  half 
a  hand  in  height  over  what  they  were  when  they  left  the  east. 
In  like  manner  men  grew,  not  in  stature,  but  in  mind.  They 
were  broader,  steadier-brained  than  when  they  left  home.  The 
change  was  such  as  comes  to  volunteers  when,  under  the  fric- 
tion of  a  great  war,  they  are  hardened  and  refined  into  vet- 
erans. 

It  is  the  rule  in  the  eastern  states  to  give  those  pioneers 
credit  for  what  they  did.  but  it  is  often  said.  "It  is  most  strange 
that  no  really  very  great  men  were  with  those  Argonauts." 
People  that  talk  that  way  do  not  know.  Mount  Shasta  is  a 
very  much  more  imposing  mountain  than  Mt.  Whitney,  though 
Whitney  is  the  higher  mountain  of  the  two.  The  reason  is 
that  Shasta  is  a  butte — that  is,  it  springs  up  into  the  heavens 
from  the  valley  and  is  not  dwarfed  by  any  surrounding  moun- 
tains, while  all  around  Mt.  Whitney  are  peaks  almost  as  high 

9 


122 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


as  its  own.  There  was  a  general  higher  proportion  of  great 
brains  and  great  hearts  in  California  than  were  ever  seen  in 
an}^  state  before.  It  will  do  no  harm  to  name  a  few  as  they 
come  to  memory. 

There  was  General  E.  D.  Baker,  who  went  east  as  a  sen- 
ator on  the  eve  of  the  coming  of  the  great  war.  and  a  little 
later  died  under  a  battle  cloud. 

There  was  David  C.  Broderick,  who  made  himself  a  name 
in  California  which  is  reverenced  there  still,  and  who,  in  the 
same  cause,  though  under  a  different  name,  died  for  his 
country. 

He  who  later  was  General  Tecumseh  Sherman  was  run- 
ning a  little  bank,  and  he  who  later  was  Admiral  Farragut 
commanded  at  Mare  island. 

At  that  time,  too,  John  W.  Mackay  was  mining  on  Yuba 
river.  The  world  knows  what  he  was  pretty  well,  but  I  remem- 
ber when  a  strike  was  threatened  in  Virginia  City,  he  said 
to  me : 

"The  little  additional  money  that  these  miners  want  is 
nothing.  (They  were  getting  $4.00  a  day.)  What  I  hate  is 
the  spirit  of  it  all.  I  rolled  rocks  in  the  Yuba  river  month 
after  month,  even  though  I  did  not  earn  four  bits  a  day,  but 
then  I  did  not  strike.  I  lived  on  the  four  bits  (fifty  cents)  until 
I  could  make  more,  then  I  enlarged  my  menu,  and  the  one 
thought  that  possessed  me  in  all  those  years  was,  sometime, 
somewhere,  if  I  had  but  courage  enough  and  strength  enough, 
I  could  win  out.  I  never  thought  of  asking  help  of  any  man,  I 
never  growled  at  conditions ;  the  good  God  had  given  me  a 
good  constitution  and  a  pair  of  strong  arms,  and  I  always  said 
to  myself  that  that  was  capital  enough  to  begin  with  in  this 
world." 

Buying  gold  dust  in  those  days  was  D.  O.  Mills.  \\'hen 
later  a  fortune  came  to  him,  he  went  to  New  York,  and  the 
shrewdest  financiers  there  realized  that  there  was  a  man  among 
them  equal  to  their  best. 

There  was  Collis  P.  Huntington,  who  had  a  little  store  in 
Sacramento,  ^^'hen  later  a  fortune  came  to  him  and  he  went 
to  New  York  and  started  into  a  regular  Roman  wrestling 


THE  OLD  BOYS.  123 

match  with  the  financiers  there,  they  found  he  was  about  the 
hardest  man  to  throw  down  they  had  ever  met. 

There  was  J.  P,  Jones.  All  those  years  he  was  up  in  the 
hills  of  Trinity  county.  Those  who  knew  him  knew  he  was 
brighter  than  anybody,  jollier  than  anybody,  deeper  than  any- 
body else  in  their  county,  and  when  later  he  went  to  Nevada 
and  was  sent  from  there  to  the  senate  of  the  United  States, 
in  his  careless  way  and  dress  the  other  senators  looked  upon 
him  as  a  western  product  which  would  add  picturesqueness  if 
not  much  wisdom  to  the  senate.  But  finally  a  great  national 
question  came  up  and  then  this  miner  who  had  become  senator, 
arose  to  speak  upon  it.  He  had  proceeded  but  a  little  way  until 
the  sharp  men  around  him  began  to  question  him,  expecting, 
of  course,  to  discomfit  him.  He  answered  all  their  questions 
on  the  moment  and  answered  them  in  such  a  way  that  they 
knew  instinctively  that  what  they  had  thought  was  a  common 
stone  was  in  fact  a  pure  diamond,  and  ever  after  they  were 
careful  how  they  questioned  him. 

There  was  Chief  Justice  Hugh  Murray,  who  went  upon 
the  bench  when  but  a  little  over  thirty  years  of  age  and  died 
when  he  was  only  thirty-four  years  of  age,  but  who  wrote 
decisions  which  lawyers  now  appeal  to  and  admit  their 
strength  and  directness. 

There  was  Stephen  J.  Field,  who,  after  a  while,  w^as  made 
a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  who  held 
the  place  for  more  than  thirty  years  and  whose  decisions  are 
models  for  lawyers  in  every  state  in  the  Union. 

There  were  wild  miners  who  sent  communications  to  the 
city  papers  and  when  they  were  read,  the  public  knew  that 
somewhere  in  the  hills  a  new  bird  was  singing  with  voice 
sweeter  than  the  lark,  but  more  shrill  than  the  eagle's  scream. 

Bret  Harte  found  fame  first  in  California.  He  caught 
it  from  the  atmosphere  down  there.  He  never  could  have 
written  "1^-uthful  James"  had  he  remained  in  the  east.  That 
came  from  the  impelling  forces  around  him. 

Tliere  were  such  clergymen  as  Dr.  Scott  and  Reverend 
Stebbins ;  such  lawyers  as  John  B.  Felton  and  Hall  McAlister ; 
such  scholars  as  Leconte.     There  were  men  of  affairs  there 


124 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


who,  looking-  at  the  boundless  possibilities  before  them,  said 
to  themselves.  "We  are  sufficient  for  them.  Wt  will  grasp 
them  and  take  them  in."  There  was  Httle  \\'m.  Sharon,  deli- 
cate of  health,  who  made  no  noise  in  CaHfornia,  but  who  later 
stood  at  the  helm  when  the  Comstock's  future  was  hanging  in 
the  balance  and  saved  it.  and  when  later  there  came  the  crash 
of  the  Bank  of  California  and  the  eastern  financiers  said,  "That 
is  the  end.  Another  western  bubble  has  burst."  he  closed  his 
thin  lips  and  in  three  months  had  the  bank  again  established, 
all  the  debts  paid,  all  the  dishonor  which  had  been  threatening 
turned  aside,  and  gave  to  the  men  of  the  east  an  object  lesson, 
where  a  bank  failed  and  where  no  other  bank  in  all  this  nation 
had  ever  reopened  when  loaded  with  such  responsibilities ;  gave 
them  an  object  lesson  in  a  rejuvenated  bank,  stronger  and 
more  commanding  than  ever. 

There  was  no  end  of  them.  There  was  no  work  too  big 
for  them  to  undertake  and  carry  out.  And  there  were  others 
who  did  not  care  for  all  the  gold  in  California,  who  sat  on  their 
perches  like  mocking  birds  and  mocked  every  singer  in  the 
forest,  and  then,  as  if  out  of  self-respect,  struck  out  and  sang 
a  song  of  their  own.  sweeter  than  the  mourning  dove's  call  to 
her  sweetheart. 

If  the  present  generation  is  not  altogether  remarkable,  it  is 
not  any  lack  in  the  race,  but  it  is  because  those  Argonauts, 
when  they  saw  a  child,  were  sure  to  spoil  it.  If  it  did  not 
have  a  silver  spoon  in  its  mouth,  they  put  one  in,  and  they  let 
that  first  generation  grow  up  under  the  sunbeams,  living  idle 
lives,  like  the  birds  that  sang  around  them,  like  the  flowers  that 
bloomed  around  them,  and  it  will  take  perhaps  a  generation  or 
two  more  before  a  race  appears  that  will  understand  from  the 
first  that  nothing  is  really  good  unless  it  is  earned,  and  that 
it  is  man's  duty  from  the  first,  with  his  own  hands,  and  eyes, 
and  brain,  if  he  wants  something  worth  keeping,  to  earn  it. 

As  I  began,  so  I  close.  California  then  was  the  glory  of 
the  earth.  It  is  a  glory  still,  and  the  first  race  that  gave  the 
nation  the  gold  through  which  it  might  become  great,  which 
planted  the  first  fields,  which  framed  the  first  institutions,  was 
the  stateliest  race  that  had  ever  peopled  a  new  state. 


WILLIAM  SHARON. 

IT  IS  said  that  a  new  bonanza  has  been  discovered  and  is 
now  being-  explored  in  the  deep  levels  of  the  old  Mexican 
mine.  It  is  fifty-two  years  since  two  placer  miners,  work- 
ing with  rockers  on  a  little  stream  that  ran  down  East  canyon 
from  Mount  Davidson,  in  what  was  then  Carson  County,  Utah, 
found  as  they  worked  up  this  ravine,  increasing  value  in  each 
day's  work  until  at  last,  as  they  reached  the  head  of  the  ravine, 
they  realized  $300  per  day  from  each  rocker;  notwithstand- 
ing that  a  persistent  bluish  rock  annoyed  them  by  clogging 
their  rockers  and  despite  the  fact  that  some  incomprehensible 
alloy  reduced  the  value  of  their  gold  to  $13  per  ounce.  Their 
eyes  were  blinded.  They  never  had  thought  of  sending  the 
material  they  were  washing  to  an  assayer.     Why  should  they? 

It  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  by  trail  to  the  nearest 
assay  office,  and  then  it  was  only  gold  that  they  were  after, 
and  they  could  get  the  gold  by  washing.  At  the  head  of  the 
ravine,  they  came  upon  a  great  deposit  of  this  rich  gravel,  and 
located  it.  The  news  of  the  rich  diggings  they  had  found  was 
told  by  one  prospector  to  another  and  now  and  then  a  man 
climbed  that  rugged  mountain  out  of  curiosity  to  see  what  was 
there.  One  of  these  picked  up  a  piece  of  this  strange  blue- 
black  metal  and  carried  it  away  as  a  pocket  piece.  He  lived 
near  where  Reno,  Nevada,  now  is,  but  a  few  days  later  made 
a  visit  to  his  old  home  in  Nevada  City,  California.  He  gave 
this  strange  pocket  piece  to  a  friend.  The  friend  took  it  to 
an  assayer  and  asked  him  to  test  it  for  gold,  silver,  copper  or 
anything  else  he  could  think  of.  The  result  was  nearly  $1,200 
gold  and  nearly  $1,500  silver  per  ton. 

So  the  gravel  that  the  miners  had  been  w^orking  up  the 
ravine,  and  the  deposit  they  had  located  at  the  head  of  the 
ravine,  was  not  gravel  at  all,  but  decomposed  rock  from  the 
croppings  of  the  old  Ophir  and  Mexican  mines,  as  they  have 
since  been  known. 

That  was  how  one  end  of  the  great  Comstock  lode  was 


126  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

discovered.  Of  course,  there  was  an  unparalleled  excitement 
and  rush  for  the  astounding  new  camp.  It  was  the  first  silver 
mine  ever  found  in  the  United  States ;  a  little  later  more  silver 
mines  were  found  out  on  the  desert  north,  east  and  south;  the 
whole  financial  world  was  electrified.  W'hat  fortunes  could  not 
men  accumulate  now.  Who  could  measure  the  wealth  of  such 
a  country  as  ours? 

No  man  in  the  republic  knew  how  to  successfully  reduce 
silver  ores,  but  that  abashed  no  one.  The  silver  and  the  gold 
w'ere  there,  and  there  must  be  a  way  to  work  them,  so  they 
went  to  work.  The  story  of  those  first  years  has  often  been 
told. 

Two  or  three  years  later  a  man  went  up  from  San  Fran- 
cisco to  see  the  famous  lode  and  the  state  of  business  around 
the  mines.  That  man  was  William  Sharon.  He  had  early 
gone  to  California  and  engaged  in  the  realty  business  in  San 
Francisco. 

He  was  well  educated  in  the  schools,  had  studied  law 
enough  to  understand  its  exact  relations  to  business,  was  by 
nature  shrewd  and  far-seeing  and  could  reason  from  cause  to 
effect  on  a  business  proposition  with  the  quickness  of  intuition. 
He  was  a  small  man,  weighing  perhaps  135  pounds,  always 
delicate  of  health.  His  hands  were  small  and  white  as  those 
of  a  dainty  and  perfectly  groomed  woman,  but  he  carried  a 
sovereign  head  upon  his  shoulders,  and  his  features  were  as 
clearly  cut  as  were  those  of  that  class  of  old  Greeks  that  rung 
the  world  of  their  day.  His  face  was  lighted  by  a  pair  of  cold 
gray  eyes,  a  glance  into  which  made  clear  that  any  one  who 
dealt  with  him  should  understand  from  the  first  that  no  bluff 
would  ever  carry  with  him,  that  no  matter  what  the  crisis  would 
be,  it  would  be  met  without  fear. 

The  Vigilance  committee  of  1856  gave  San  Francisco 
business  a  very  black  eye ;  the  cream  of  the  California  placers 
had  been  skimmed :  the  rush  to  Eraser  River  of  thousands  of 
miners  in  1858,  and  the  return  of  those  miners  as  a  rule  bereft 
of  everything,  made  any  advance  for  San  Francisco  impossible, 
and  men  who  were  loaded  up  with  San  Francisco  real  estate. 


WILLIAM  SHARON.  127 

if  much  in  debt,  could  not  extricate  themselves,  and  lost  all 
they  had. 

After  1859,  the  liveliest  business  there  was  dealing  in 
mining-  shares.  Sharon  watched  this  for  a  while,  and  then 
went  in  person  to  Virginia  City.  He  found  a  strange  state  of 
affairs.  A  good  many  crude  quartz  mills  had  been  built, 
generally  on  insufficient  capital ;  the  cream  of  the  croppings 
of  the  great  lode  had  been  skimmed ;  most  of  the  mines  were 
in  litigation ;  the  little  banks  there  had  loaned  all  their  money 
on  mills  and  mines  at  a  regular  interest  of  five  per  cent  per 
month,  but  could  collect  neither  principal  nor  interest,  nor 
could  run  the  mines  nor  mills;  there  were  no  pay  days  for 
miners,  and  Sharon  found  a  community  of  several  thousand 
people  standing  over  immeasurable  treasures,  but  unable  to 
utilize  them. 

It  was  a  case  of  oceans  in  sight  but  not  a  drop  to  drink. 
The  prospect  of  bringing  order  out  of  such  a  situation  would 
have  daunted  most  men.  Sharon,  after  looking  around  a  few 
days,  wired  W.  C.  Ralston  of  the  Bank  of  California  that  the 
thing  needed  there  was  a  bank.  Ralston  wired  back,  "Come 
down,  and  we  will  talk  it  over." 

The  result  was  that  in  a  few  days  a  branch  bank  was 
established  there.  It  took  over  the  interests  of  the  little  banks 
in  the  mines  and  mills,  a  regular  pay-day  for  miners  was  estab- 
lished ;  interest  was  reduced  to  twelve  per  cent  per  annum;  reg- 
ular superintendents  at  high  salaries  were  appointed  on  the  sep- 
arate mines;  about  the  same  time  the  dealing  ceased  to  be  in 
feet,  and  began  to  be  carried  on  in  shares ;  order  was  estab- 
lished, and  business,  reduced  to  business  channels,  began  to 
move  without  friction.  And  William  Sharon  was  the  captain 
on  the  bridge  that  ordered  everything,  anticipated  everything, 
prepared  for  everything  and  with  a  nerve  that  was  superb 
fought  the  difficulties  that  confronted  him  and  kept  the  im- 
mense machinery  of  that  business  running  smoothly;  though 
there  w^ere  times  when  the  obstacles  in  the  way  would  have 
broken  the  heart  of  any  other  man,  for  sometimes  it  looked 
as  though  the  whole  lode  was  going  into  perpetual  borasca. 
His  troubles  were  not  all  local.     D.  O.  Mills  was  then  presi- 


128  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

dent  of  the  parent  bank  in  San  Francisco,  and  was  exact  in  his 
business  methods  as  a  perfectly  adjusted  engine  is  in  its  move- 
ments, and  looked  upon  anything  like  gambling  in  business 
when  that  in  any  way  affected  the  integrity  of  a  bank,  as  an 
unforgivable  crime,  and  mining  was  not  reduced  to  an  exact 
science  in  those  days  by  a  very  considerable  extent.  Indeed, 
there  is  always  an  element  of  gambling  in  mining,  and  for  that 
matter  in  every  kind  of  business.  When  the  farmer  ploughs  his 
field  and  plants  his  crop,  he  gambles  that  the  soil,  the  moisture, 
the  sunlight  and  the  air,  will  return  him  three  or  four  or  forty 
fold  what  he  plants,  and  he  does  this,  knowing  that  possibly 
frost,  or  the  drought,  or  the  locust  or  the  worm,  or  the  storm 
may  render  all  his  efforts  rewardless. 

So  the  miner,  when  he  sees  an  indication  on  one  level, 
knowing  the  pitch  and  trend  of  the  mine,  figures  that  at  a 
certain  point  in  the  depth,  that  indication  will  have  swelled 
into  an  ore  body  and  delves  for  it,  all  the  time  aware  that 
a  fault  may  have  occurred  a  million  years  ago  that  would 
make  his  hopes  futile,  and  his  labor  vain,  but  from  the  record 
of  the  doctrine  of  chances,  estimates  how  often  he  will  win. 
Many  people  pronounce  his  work  extra  hazardous,  but  call  the 
gambling  of  the  insurance  man  legitimate  business  when  he, 
in  fact,  for  $30  of  your  money  hand  paid,  wagers  that  your 
$3,000  house  will  not  burn  for  a  year  to  come.  In  the  same 
way  Mr.  Sharon  learned  the  habits  of  the  Comstock  and  so 
dealt  with  its  moods,  and  though  carrying  the  cares  of  a  hun- 
dred men  in  his  brain,  directed  and  controlled  that  mighty 
business  and  knew  every  day  his  business  latitude  and  longi- 
tude as  certainly  as  does  the  master  of  a  ship  his  place  on  the 
sea.  when  every  day  the  great  sun  bends  down  to  give  him  the 
needed  data.  So  he  was  justly  called  the  king  of  the  Com- 
stock for  ten  years.  At  last  he  aspired  to  be  elected  to  the 
senate  and  he  was.  I  fear  all  his  methods  would  not  have 
been  approved  by  Senator  Beveridge,  but  his  methods  were  not 
like  those  in  the  East.  Here  is  a  sample :  Joe  Stewart  was 
a  Virginia  City  gambler.  He  was  known  far  and  near  as  a 
dead  square  man  in  business.  Sharon  met  him  one  morning 
and  said :  "Joe.  I  am  going  to  be  a  candidate  for  senator.    You 


WILLIAM  SHARON.  129 

and  I  have  long  been  friends.  I  want  you  to  help  me  among 
your  class  of  men.  It  will  take  much  of  your  time,  and  you 
will  naturally  spend  a  good  deal  of  money.  Come  into  the 
bank  and  I  will  give  you  a  check."  "Your  check  be  d — d," 
was  Joe's  reply.  "I  expect  to  help  you;  you  know  that  I  w'A] 
do  all  I  can  for  you,  but  not  for  money.  You  can  command 
me  without  any  of  your  checks."  "Oh,  all  right,"  said  Sharon. 
They  then  talked  for  a  few  minutes,  when  Sharon  suddenly 
said :  "By  the  way,  Joe,  it  is  a  long  time  since  we  had  a  game 
of  poker.  Can  you  not  fix  one  for  tonight?"  "Oh,  yes,"  said 
Stewart.  "Well,  make  it  for  about  9  p.  m.  and  I  will  be  up," 
said  Sharon. 

He  was  there  at  the  hour  and  the  game  began.  Sharon 
was  unlucky  from  the  first.  He  lost  and  lost  with  a  bad  grace. 
He  made  a  great  ado  over  every  loss,  until  Stewart  said : 
"Why,  Sharon,  what  is  the  matter  with  you  tonight?  I  have 
seen  you  lose  before,  but  have  never  known  you  to  make  such  a 
fuss  over  it." 

"It  is  a  blankety  blank  thieving  game.  How  much  do  I 
owe?"  asked  Sharon.  Stewart  looked  over  the  memoranda 
and  replied,  "Four  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty-five  dol- 
lars." Sharon  called  for  a  blank  check,  filled  in  the  amount 
and  signed  it ;  then  pushed  it  over  to  Stewart  and  said :  "I 
suppose  you  think  you  have  earned  that."  "Yes,"  said  Stewart. 
"It  was  a  square  game."  Then  Sharon  said:  "See  how  much 
trouble  you  can  make  a  man  sometimes.  That  is  just  $235 
less  than  I  intended  to  give  you  this  morning,  if  you  had  not 
got  so  cranky  about  nothing." 

In  that  same  campaign  a  husky  young  man  called  at  the 
office  one  day  and,  saying  that  his  name  was  Sharon,  asked  to 
see  Mr.  William  Sharon.  General  Dodge  was  in  the  ante- 
room, showed  him  in  and  explained  to  Mr.  Sharon  that  the 
man  said  his  own  name  was  Sharon  and  that  he  hailed  from 
eastern  Nevada.  Sharon  greeted  liim  cordially  asking  him  what 
Sharon  family  he  belonged  to.  and  how  things  were  in  eastern 
Nevada.  The  man  proceeded  to  business  at  once.  He  said  he 
could  control  at  least  fifty  votes,  but  it  would  require  some 
monev.     "About  how  much  monev?"  asked  Sharon.     "About 


130 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


$100  apiece,"  was  the  reply.  A  cold  bluff  for  $5,000.  It  was 
too  transparent.  Sharon  sprang  from  his  chair  like  a  tiger, 
and  hurling"  an  unspeakable  volley  of  anathemas  at  the  man, 
wound  up  by  saying :  "You  infernal  petty  larceny  hold-up. 
I  will  give  you  $500  if  you  will  petition  some  legislature  to 
change  your  name,  but  would  not  give  you  another  cent  to 
save  your  worthless  life." 

The  man  seemed  glad  to  get  out  alive  without  even 
the  $500. 

A  year  and  a  half  later  Ralston  stretched  out  too  far,  and 
the  great  California  bank  had  to  close  its  doors.  It  was  a  bad 
break,  so  bad  that  it  was  believed  to  be  hopeless.  The  eastern 
newspapers  held  it  up  as  a  sample  of  wild  speculation,  and 
scoffed  at  the  idea  that  it  could  ever  again  open  its  doors.  The 
directors  of  the  bank  were  overwhelmed  and  utterly  pros- 
trated. 

For  the  marriage  of  his  daughter  to  Senator  Newlands 
and  to  please  his  children.  Sharon  had  fitted  his  San  Francisco 
home  beautifully;  the  parlors  were  a  dream.  When  the  bank 
closed  its  doors  he  had  some  rough  tables  placed  in  those  par- 
lors, upon  the  tables  were  paper  and  pencils  and  cigars,  and 
around  these  tables,  amid  clouds  of  cigar  smoke,  for  six  weeks 
the  directors  sat  and  consulted.  Some  were  quitters,  some 
cowards,  some  belligerent,  but  all,  at  the  beginning,  were  set- 
tled in  the  conviction  that  the  bank  was  hopelessly  involved 
and  intent  only  on  seeing  how  much  of  their  private  fortunes 
could  be  saved  from  the  wreck. 

One  of  the  band  intimated  that  the  trouble  started  by 
adopting  mining  methods  of  running  the  bank.  At  this  Sharon 
quietly  rejoined  that  he  had  never  suggested  a  change  in  the 
bank's  methods ;  that  by  his  work  in  Nevada  he  had  made  every 
one  of  them  more  money  than  he  had  lost  by  the  failure,  and 
had  four  years  previously  saved  the  bank  from  disaster, 
when  by  the  opening  of  New  Montgomery  street,  and  the  pur- 
chase of  the  necessary  realty,  the  bank  had  advanced  too  much 
money. 

Another  director  then  began  to  assail  the  memory  of  Mr. 
Ralston,  and  then  all  the  smothered  wrath  in  Sharon's  soul 


WILLIAM  SHARON.  131 

burst  forth,  and  in  a  few  terse  and  incisive  sentences  he  declared 
that  ]\Ir.  Ralston  had  more  heart  and  soul  than  the  whole  band. 
That  whatever  his  faults  were  he  had  made  restitution  for 
them  all  by  dying  of  a  broken  heart,  and  that  in  their  further 
deliberations  those  faults  should  not  be  called  in  evidence. 

Continuing,  he  then  insisted  that  the  question  before  them 
was  not  how  to  bury  a  wreck,  but  how  to  reinstate  a  great 
financial  institution  and  save  their  individual  honor,  and  the 
honor  of  the  city  and  state.  They  all  declared  that  to  be  im- 
possible, but  Sharon  insisted.  So  the  matter  hung  for  days. 
The  bold  and  angry  ones  Sharon  bluffed ;  the  fearful  and  timid 
ones  he  coaxed  and  conciliated,  his  position  being  that  each 
from  his  private  fortune  should  double  his  subscription  as  a 
stockholder;  that  by  so  doing  the  bank  would  be  in  better 
standing  in  a  year  than  it  ever  had  been  and  would  pay  them 
better  interest  on  their  money  than  they  could  obtain  in  any 
other  way.  In  addition,  for  his  part  he  took  the  half-finished 
Palace  Hotel  with  its  liabilities.  After  some  weeks  of  this,  the 
announcement  was  one  morning  made  in  the  papers  that  on 
a  certain  day  the  California  Bank  would  resume  business  and 
be  prepared  to  meet  all  demands. 

It  did  open  as  advertised,  in  three  months  it  had  won  back 
all  the  prestige  it  had  lost,  and  was  making  more  money  than 
ever  before.  It  exalted  the  prestige  and  credit  of  the  west  in 
the  east  more  than  any  other  event  ever  did,  and  it  made  clear 
that  among  shrewd  and  sagacious  financiers  William  Sharon 
was  a  past  grand  master. 

In  private  life  Mr.  Sharon  had  his  moods.  When  an- 
noyed he  could  be  unreasonable,  and  say  unjust  words ;  again 
he  could  be  the  most  delightful  of  hosts,  and  a  most  brilliant 
conversationalist,  for  he  was  a  finished  scholar  along  all  the 
lines  of  the  great  thinkers,  and  again  when  in  reminiscent  mood 
to  trusted  friends  he  sometimes  made  clear  the  load  he  had 
carried  while  lifting  the  burdens  from  the  well-nigh  prostrate 
Comstock.  In  the  gentle  way  he  rehearsed  them,  with  nothing 
like  vanity  or  egotism  in  the  narrative,  the  story  was  as  win- 
some as  a  great  drama. 


COL.  DAVID  T.  BUEL. 

SIX  feet  four  inches  in  height,  had  he  met  Saul  his  first 
question  would  have  been:  "Son  of  Kish,  which  of 
us  are  the  people  looking  up  to?"  He  obtained  his 
military  title  by  leading  a  band  of  men  against  the  Pitt  River 
and  Modoc  Indians  who  had  been  raiding  the  settlements  on 
the  lower  Pitt  river,  in  California,  in  1850  or  1851.  His  com- 
mand brought  home  many  scalps. 

He  had  fairly  earned  his  title,  for  he  was  never  afraid. 
His  brain  was  filled  with  a  rude  but  far-seeing  strategy,  and  his 
tactics,  though  not  elaborate,  were  effective.  They  may  be 
described  in  the  few  words,  "Find  'em:  then  take  'em  in." 

He  was  a  natural  leader.  With  his  height,  his  breadth  of 
shoulders,  his  aggressiveness  and  the  absolute  absence  of  fear 
in  his  make-up,  he  could  not  help  but  be,  for  men  have  been 
looking  up  to  and  following  that  style  of  man  since  before  the 
days  of  Saul. 

He  was  a  pioneer  on  the  Golden  Coast,  one  of  the  first. 
It  was  naturally  so,  for  had  any  started  before  him,  he  would 
have  passed  them  and  led  them  in.  He  early  made  a  name  in 
California.  Readers' w'ill  have  already  recognized  how  per- 
fectly in  place  he  must  have  been  in  a  Democratic  convention, 
and  how  natural  it  was  when  he  arose  in  a  convention  and  said 
"Mr.  Speaker?"  for  the  presiding  officer  to  recognize  him,  and 
for  the  full  convention  to  see  him. 

After  a  wdiile  he  was  elected  sheriff  of  El  Dorado  County. 
With  all  his  plunging  ways,  he  had  a  profound  respect  for  law, 
and  for  any  sworn  officer  to  betray  or  fail  in  his  trust,  he  held 
to  be  the  unpardonable  sin. 

In  the  early  days  on  the  west  coast  people  had  not  much 
patience  with  criminals,  and  as  they  had  to  rely  a  good  deal 
upon  themselves,  executions  were  sometimes  summary.  There 
was  a  tree  outside  of  Placerville — in  those  days,  called  Hang- 
town — a  live  oak,  if  I  remember  correctly,  upon  the  branches 
of  which  tree  it  was  said  that  some  thirteen  or  fourteen  men 


COLONEL  DAVID  T.  BUEL.  133 

had  suffered  as  Absolom  did — they  were  caught  in  the  branches 
and  their  mules  walked  out  from  under  them. 

A  man  charged  with  some  crime  was  in  the  jail,  which 
was  not  a  very  secure  structure.  Col.  Buel  had  but  a  few  days 
before  qualified  as  sheriff.  He  was  called  to  a  distant  part  of 
the  county  and  was  returning.  He  was  resting  for  a  few  min- 
utes at  a  wayside  station,  twelve  miles  from  Placerville.  From 
the  station  there  was  a  grade  up  the  mountain  for  three  miles, 
then  the  path  descended  gradually  into  Placerville.  The  colonel 
always  rode  a  thoroughbred  horse,  and  it  was  more  to  rest  the 
liorse  than  himself  that  he  had  stopped  at  the  station,  for  he 
and  the  horse  were  close  friends. 

While  there  a  messenger  dashed  up  on  a  foaming  horse, 
sprang  to  the  ground  and  handed  the  colonel  a  letter.  It  was 
from  one  of  his  deputies,  and  stated  tersely  that  there  would  be 
an  attempt  that  night  to  take  the  prisoner  from  the  jail  and 
lynch  him. 

The  colonel  crushed  the  letter  in  his  hand,  thrust  it  into 
his  pocket  and  called  sharply  for  a  bucket  of  water  and  a  bottle 
of  whiskey.  He  broke  off  the  neck  of  the  bottle,  poured  half 
its  contents  into  the  water,  then  held  the  bucket  up  to  the  horse, 
which  eagerly  drank  its  contents.  Rubbing  his  hand  over  the 
face  and  nose  of  the  horse,  and  calling  him  by  his  name,  said, 
"Come,"  and  started  with  his  long  strides,  like  a  gray  wolf's 
lope,  up  the  steep  grade,  the  horse  follovk'ing  like  a  dog  close 
behind. 

Reaching  the  summit  he  sprang  upon  the  back  of  the  horse 
and  gave  him  the  rein. 

When  he  reached  Placerville,  the  night  had  come  down, 
the  crowd  already  had  taken  the  prisoner  to  the  fatal  tree  and 
had  a  rope  around  his  neck. 

Buel  rode  straight  to  the  crowd,  sprang  from  the  horse 
and  began  to  force  his  way  through  the  excited  mass  toward 
the  prisoner,  the  horse  following  at  his  heels. 

Twenty  revolvers  were  drawn  on  Buel,  and  he  was  sternh^ 
ordered  back  on  pain  of  death.  But  he  continued  to  force  his 
way,  crying  to  those  around  him  :  "Don't  be  inhuman,  men. 
The  man  may  have  a  last  message  to  send  or  a  prayer  to  offer." 


k 


134  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Ilirough  his  tremendous  strength  and  determination  he  quickly 
reached  the  man,  with  his  knife  cut  the  rope  from  his  neck, 
then,  seizing  the  man,  threw  him  upon  the  horse's  back,  struck 
the  horse's  flank,  with  the  flat  of  his  hand  and  bade  the  man 
ride  for  his  Hfe. 

Then,  turning  to  the  crowd,  he  denounced  them  as 
cowards  and  law-breakers,  and  declared  them  all  under  arrest. 

There  were  hot  words  and  many  threats  for  five  minutes ; 
then  the  mad-men  realized  that  they  had  all  been  baffled  by 
one  man  who  was  not  afraid,  and  one  of  the  bunch  proposed 
three  cheers  for  the  new  sheriff.  Then,  I  am  told,  they 
made  a  night  of  it  and  that  the  sheriff  went  along  to  see  that 
order  was  kept.  He  got  back  his  horse  in  a  day  or  two,  but 
the  prisoner  was  never  seen  in  that  region  again. 

Of  course.  Colonel  Buel  went  with  the  crowd  to  the  Com- 
stock.  In  the  ten  years  in  California  he  had  learned  much 
about  mining  and  mine  formations  and  was  a  practical  expert. 

He  visited  all  the  camps  in  the  state,  but  finally  decided 
that  for  him  the  neighborhood  of  Austin  was  better  than  that 
about  the  Comstock.  The  leads  were  narrower,  but  the  ore 
was  richer  and  the  competition  less. 

From  Austin,  he  went  off  south,  with  a  company,  on  a 
prospecting  trip  and  wore  out  his  shoes.  One  of  the  boys  found 
a  dead  ox  on  the  desert;  from  its  hide  he  cut  two  pieces,  bent 
up  the  edges,  attached  some  buckskin  strings  and  tendered  them 
to  the  colonel  for  sandals.  He  put  them  on ;  they  worked  all 
right.  On  reaching  Austin  there  was  a  call  for  money  for 
the  sanitary  fund. 

The  colonel  was  a  red-hot  Democrat,  but  the  cry  appealed 
to  him.  He  put  up  his  sandals  at  auction.  He  called  attention 
to  the  value  of  the  sandals,  pointed  out  their  length  and  depth 
and  breath  and  beam,  and  asked  for  bids.  One  man  offered 
a  dollar,  another  a  dollar  and  a  half,  but  the  bidding  was  slow. 
The  colonel  bid  twenty  dollars,  then  upbraided  the  crowd,  told 
them  the  money  was  for  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  and  put  up 
the  sandals  again.     The  result  was  they  brought  $916.00. 

At  last  he  drifted  down  to  Belmont  and  bonded  one  of 
the  mines  there.      He  took  the  bond  and  the  needed  data. 


COLONEL  DAVID  T.  BULL.  135 

went  to  England  and  sold  it,  realizing  a  little  fortune  from 
the  sale. 

Then  he  determined  to  make  a  run  over  to  Paris  and  see 
the  sights  for  a  week.  It  was  not  long  after  Napoleon  III  and 
Eugenie  were  married,  and  all  Paris  was  rejoicing. 

In  his  youth  the  colonel's  study  of  French  had  been  at  best 
most  superficial,  there  was  not  a  word  in  the  language  that  he 
could  pronounce  correctly.  But,  by  the  show  bills  that  were 
hung  out  with  their  pictures  and  by  the  preparations  he  saw 
going  on,  he  knew  a  great  horse  race  was  going  to  be  run. 
so  he  followed  the  crowd  to  the  track.  The  seats  were  all 
occupied  except  those  in  one  special  stand.  He  noticed  that 
over  this  stand  were  flying  many  gay  flags.  It  was  carpeted 
and  supplied  with  easy  chairs.  He  immediately  took  posses- 
sion of  one  of  these  chairs  on  a  long  row  of  seats.  Soon  an 
ofiicer  rode  up,  saluted  and  delivered  a  brief  oration,  of  which 
the  colonel  did  not  understand  a  word.  But  he  bowed  politely 
to  the  officer  and  thanked  him,  but  kept  his  seat.  The  officer 
seemed  much  perplexed,  and  finally  turned  his  horse  and  rode 
away.  Then  an  officer  covered  with  decorations  rode  up, 
curtly  saluted,  and  in  a  most  impressive  tone  explained  some- 
thing to  the  colonel,  upon  hearing  which  he  bowed  profoundlv, 
told  the  officer  that  he  was  greatly  obliged,  pointed  to  a  seat 
beside  him  and  in  pantomime  invited  the  officer  to  occupy  it. 

The  officer  was  wild,  and  was  just  entering  upon  a  most 
vehement  speech  when  a  trumpet  sounded  and  a  carriage  and 
four,  superbly  caparisoned  and  attended  by  a  glittering  array 
of  mounted  outriders,  drove  up  and  the  emperor  and  empress 
alighted  and  entered  the  stand.  The  officer,  with  extravagant 
gesticulations,  explained  something  to  the  emperor,  who  turned 
and  glanced  at  Colonel  Buel,  then  with  a  smile,  bade  the  officer 
let  the  elongated  American  alone.  And  the  colonel  watched 
the  races  from  the  royal  stand. 

The  colonel  was  one  of  the  pioneers  of  Eureka,  Nevada. 
He  and  his  associates  obtained  a  working  bond  on  the  Eureka 
Con. ;  built  the  furnaces  and  worked  them  successfully ;  thor- 
oughly opened  the  mines,  when  they  sold  out  at  a  large 
advance  to  an  English  company.     It  would  have  been  better 


136  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

for  them  had  the  sale  fallen  through,  for  the  mines  paid 
$1,000,000  per  annum  dividends  for  fifteen  years. 

The  colonel  removed  to  Salt  Lake  and  operated  mines  in 
Utah  and  in  Nevada  for  several  years,  then  went  to  Joplin, 
Missouri,  and  worked  for  awhile  until  finally,  overborne  by  a 
life  filled  with  hardships,  died  in  St.  Lnuis  some  eighteen  or 
twenty  years  ago. 

He  was  one  of  the  most  typical  of  frontiersmen.  No 
undertaking  was  too  hazardous  to  make  him  quail,  though 
when  he  was  prosperous  nothing  was  too  good  for  him.  He 
slept  on  the  ground  in  every  county  in  California ;  he  slept  on 
the  banks  of  the  Eraser  River  when  the  rain  that  was  falling- 
was  half  ice ;  the  sagebrush  of  Nevada  made  a  good  enough 
bed  for  him,  and  the  simple  food  of  the  miner  was  a  feast  for 
him  when  he  was  prospecting,  but  in  town  he  insisted  upon 
the  best,  his  ideas  being  that  the  man  who  did  not  get  the  finest 
that  could  be  procured  every  day  was  discounting  his  own 
rights. 

He  was  honest  in  business  and  would  throw  any  one  who 
deceived  him  or  played  false;  through  a  window  on  land,  over- 
board at  sea.  He  was  an  intense  American;  he  was  public- 
spirited  ;  he  wanted  to  see  the  foremost  of  other  countries 
made  second-class  by  comparison  with  his  own ;  he  was  sensi- 
tive of  his  own  honor  and  had  any  man  maligned  a  friend  of 
his  in  his  presence  he  would  have  broken  him  in  two.  He 
passed  a  stormy,  restless,  laborious  career;  all  his  aspirations 
were  high  and  true,  and  he  prized  his  individual  honor  more 
than  he  did  his  life. 


WILLIAM  H.  CLAGGET. 

I  HEARD  of  Billie  Clagget  first  about  1864  as  a  bright 
lawyer  and  marvelous  orator  of  Humboldt  county.  An 
old  California  friend  who  lived  in  Humboldt  county,  but 
who  was  making  a  brief  business  visit  to  Virginia  City,  said 
to  me :  "We  have  a  young  man  out  in  Humboldt  whom  you 
are  going  to  hear  about  one  of  these  days.  He  is  the  son  of 
the  famous  Judge  Clagget  of  Iowa,  splendidly  grounded  in 
the  law,  but  it  is  as  a  speaker  that  he  is  going  to  win.  When 
he  talks  he  is  sometimes  a  whole  orchestra  playing,  sometimes 
just  a  great  baritone  chanting  a  battle  hymn  with  organ  accom- 
paniment." 

After  a  while  we  all  knew  him  better.  After  Nevada  was 
admitted  into  the  Union  his  business  often  called  him  before 
the  supreme  court  at  Carson  City.  About  1866  he  was  a  can- 
didate for  Congress,  but  so  many  of  us  had  made  pledges  to 
help  friends  who  were  candidates  that  we  had  to  beat  him  in 
convention,  and  have  been  grieving  over  it  ever  since. 

The  man  nominated  was  a  lawyer  and  in  broad  experience 
the  superior  of  Clagget,  but  none  of  us  loved  him  so  much. 
Had  any  one  else  been  defeated  on  that  day  we  would  all  have 
forgotten  it,  but  when  Clagget's  defeat  is  thought  of  a  feeling 
of  sorrow  is  awakened  yet  in  the  hearts  of  the  very  few  who 
are  left  of  that  convention. 

I  suspect  it  was  that  faculty  of  winning  the  sympathy  for 
the  cause  he  advocated,  that  gave  the  chiefest  charm  to  his 
eloquence. 

He  was  a  fine  lawyer  and  natural  great  orator,  but  he 
never  made  a  masterful  success  because  of  certain  idiosyncra- 
cies  of  his  mind. 

For  instance,  his  idea  of  his  own  political  sagacity  in  the 
handling  of  a  campaign  was  like  Richelieu's  idea  of  his  own 
poetry.  He  thought  it  the  clearest  evidence  of  his  genius ;  it 
was  his  utter  weakness. 

10 


138 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


An  ordinary  ward  politician  could  beat  all  his  combina- 
tions and  shiver  to  atoms  his  most  cherished  plans. 

He  was  often  the  same  way  about  business  matters.  I 
remember  that  on  one  occasion  he  was  sanguine  that  he  had 
secured  the  key  which  was  going  to  make  him  a  millionaire. 
He  explained  it  to  me.  He  told  me  of  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  worn-out  lands  that  were  in  the  state  of  Vir- 
ginia alone.  He  further  explained  that  the  land  was  not  really 
worn  out,  but  that  because  of  the  steady  rotation  of  one  crop 
certain  of  the  original  elements  of  the  soil  had  been  leached  out 
or  exhausted,  that  the  alkali  soil  in  places  in  Nevada  possessed 
those  very  elements,  and  that  with  the  alkali  soil  for  a  fertilizer 
the  lands  which  were  now  practically  almost  valueless,  would 
increase  in  value  four  or  five  hundred  per  cent. 

I  asked  him  how  much  of  the  fertilizer  he  proposed  to 
apply  to  the  acre.  He  replied,  "Oh,  some  hundreds  of  pounds, 
you  know,  it  will  cost  nothing  here  in  Nevada." 

"But,"  I  asked,  "how  much  will  the  freight  upon  it  be 
from  Nevada  to  Virginia?" 

He  had  never  thought  of  that. 

He  practiced  law  for  a  good  many  years  and  held  his  place 
up  in  the  front  rank  of  the  marvelous  bar  of  that  state,  but  his 
charm  was  his  eloquence.  He  had  every  attribute  of  an  orator. 
His  voice  was  glorious,  there  was  a  grace  in  every  movement 
that  was  an  enchantment  and  his  mind  was  so  equipped  that 
he  could  draw  his  illustrations  from  every  mine  of  knowledge. 
On  the  rostrum  he  was  perfectly  at  home,  while  before  a  great, 
cheering  crowd,  one  watching  him  thought  instinctively  of 
Job's  war  horse,  "whose  neck  was  clothed  with  thunder"  and 
"saith  among  the  trumpets.  Ha,  Ha ;  and  he  smelleth  the  battle 
afar  off.  the  thunder  of  the  captains  and  the  shouting." 

After  a  while  he  left  Nevada  and  settled  in  Montana,  when 
it  was  a  territory.  There  the  people  sent  him  as  a  delegate  to 
Congress.  But  a  delegate  from  a  territory  has  not  much  chance. 
He  is  expected  to  talk  very  little,  save  on  questions  pertaining 
to  his  own  territory,  and  it  must  have  been  a  torture  to  Clagget 
to  listen  in  half-enforced  silence  as  chump  after  chump,  in  a 


WILLIAM  H.  CLAGGET.  139 

lumbering  way,  discussed  themes  which  they  but  half  under- 
stood and  to  which  they  could  lend  no  inspiration. 

After  a  while  Clagget  visited  Salt  Lake  and  because  of 
illness  in  his  family  remained  in  that  city  several  months — the 
greater  part  of  one  winter. 

Toward  spring  he  told  me  one  day  that  he  was  going  to 
Oregon.  I  asked  him  if  he  believed  that  was  a  good  state  for 
a  lawyer,  whereupon  he  confided  to  me  that  he  did  not  care 
al;)Out  practicing  law  any  more,  but  added :  "I  have  money 
enough  to  buy  160  acres  of  land  in  Oregon  and  fix  myself 
comfortably.  I  intend  to  plant  100  acres  of  the  land  to  apples. 
There  is  no  such  country  for  apples  as  Oregon.  I  shall  plant 
100  trees  to  the  acre,  plant  them  wide  apart,  so  they  will  have 
plenty  of  sunlight.  After  eight  years  they  will  bring  me  net 
$10  to  the  tree.  There  is  never  any  failure  of  crops  there.  Ten 
dollars  to  the  tree  will  give  me  $1,000  per  acre,  and  100  acres 
will  make  my  income  $100,000  per  annum,  and  that  is  as  good 
to  a  prudent  man  as  a  million."     It  was  a  good  thought. 

I  saw  him  three  or  four  years  later  and  he  told  me  the 
climate  of  the  Willamette  valley  was  too  damp  for  him,  that  it 
gave  him  rheumatism,  and  that  he  had  made  his  home  in  Idaho. 

Two  or  three  years  later  he  was  a  candidate  for  United 
States  senator,  and  when  the  legislature  met  it  was  expected 
that  he  would  be  elected.  The  late  O.  J.  Salisbury  of  Salt  Lake 
City,  who  was  very  fond  of  him,  went  to  Boise  to  help  him. 

He  returned  after  two  or  three  weeks  and  told  me  that  it 
was  no  use ;  that  Clagget  had  a  plan  which  he  was  sure  would 
win  and  would  take  no  aflvice  from  friends,  and  added  the 
belief  that  he  would  be  defeated,  or  if  elected  it  would  be  in 
spite  of  Clagget's  management.  He  was  defeated  and  tw^o  or 
three  years  later  died.  The  greatest  sorrow  that  his  death 
caused  his  friends  was  the  thought  that  he  died  without  ever 
having  found  the  place  where  what  was  greatest  in  him  could 
be  made  clear.  What  was  masterful  and  grand  in  him  seemed 
always  under  the  domination  of  that  part  of  his  brain  that  was 
not  infrcfjuently  weak.  Men  with  half  his  legal  learning;  not 
half  his  scholarship,  possessing  not  one  tithe  of  his  eloquence, 
have  made  for  themselves  immortal  names. 


WILLIAM  M.  STEWART. 

HE  WAS  six  feet  two  inches  in  height,  his  natural  weight 
in  early  manhood  was  about  210  pounds,  which,  with 
age  increased  to  250  pounds.  He  had  a  great  wealth 
of  reddish-brown  hair,  with  immense  whiskers  and  mustache 
of  the  same  hue;  his  eyes,  I  think,  were  gray,  but  under  any 
light  except  sunlight,  they  seemed  to  be  black.  He  had  fine 
hands  and  feet,  and  was  a  most  impressive-looking  man. 

He  had,  too,  a  bearing  like  that  of  a  lion  when  he  stalks 
up  and  down  his  cage  and  dreams  of  his  days  in  the  jungle 
when  he  was  lord  of  all. 

He  was  born  a  little  east  of  Rochester,  New  York,  in 
Wayne  county,  and  grew  up  on  a  farm.  He  received  a  fair 
education  and  studied  law.  But  he  did  not  know  law  enough 
to  hurt,  until  after  he  reached  California. 

When  the  news  reached  the  east  of  the  gold  discoveries 
in  the  far  west,  he  only  waited  to  have  the  news  confirmed,  and 
then,  going  west,  bought  four  or  five  yoke  of  oxen  and  a 
wagon,  loaded  what  stores  he  thought  he  would  need,  and 
drove  his  oxen  into  California.  No  man  from  Pike  county, 
Missouri,  could  excel  him  in  manipulating  an  ox  team. 

When  he  sold  his  outfit,  bought  a  few  books  and  opened 
a  law  office  in  Nevada  City,  California,  those  who  had  seen 
him  navigate  his  "prairie  schooner"  and  oxen,  resented  the 
change  and  gave  gloomy  forecasts  of  the  future  of  an  accom- 
plished "bull-whacker"  trying  to  be  a  lawyer. 

But  Stewart  was  never  sensitive  and  was  always  san- 
guine, and  worked  on  the  theory  that  a  man  who  possessed 
the  neeeded  qualifications  to  successfully  engineer  an  ox  team 
across  the  continent  might,  if  he  tried,  succeed  in  other  fields 
of  effort. 

He  grew  in  his  profession  from  the  first.  If,  now  and 
then,  he  received  a  metaphorical  black  eye  from  some  giant 
at  the  bar  like  Colonel  E.  D.  Baker  or  General  Charles  H. 


WILLIAM  M.  STEWART.  141 

Williams,  he  was  not  discouraged,  neither  did  he  sulk  in 
his  tent,  but  went  to  work  to  fit  himself  to  meet  a  like  attack 
in  future,  and  reasoned  that  after  a  while  there  w^ould  be  no 
attacks  that  he  could  not  parry. 

It  is  told  that  when  the  original  James  Gordon  Bennett 
had  a  street  scrap  in  New  York,  and  got  the  worst  of  it;  he 
quietly  went  to  a  pump  on  the  street  corner,  washed  the  blood 
from  his  face  and  eyes,  then  sat  down  on  the  curb,  and  wrote 
a  picturescjue  account  of  the  collision  for  publication  in  his 
own  paper,  declaring,  with  proper  journalistic  alertness,  that  he 
(lid  not  intend  to  permit  the  Tribune  to  get  a  scoop. 

Our  idea  is  that  Stewart  would  have  .done  the  same  thing 
under  like  circumstances. 

His  practice  in  California  oscillated  between  Nevada 
county  and  Sierra  county,  Nevada  City  and  Downieville  being 
the  respective  county  seats. 

He  had  sharp  competition.  There  were  Thornton,  Taylor, 
Meredith,  Dunn,  Campbell,  McConnell  and  a  score  more,  and 
important  cases  drew-  from  Marysville  and  Sacramento  their 
ablest  attorneys,  and  many  of  them  were  giants. 

The  resourcefulness  of  Stewart  w^as  something  w^onder- 
ful.  Idien,  as  said  above,  he  was  not  sensitive,  neither  was  he 
sentimental,  and  his  nature  all  his  life  was  to  conquer  any 
difficulty  that  he  met. 

He  commenced  the  construction  of  a  fine  house  in  Nevada 
City.  Asked  what  he  wanted  of  so  pretentious  a  structure,  he 
replied  that  the  finest  girl  in  all  the  Golden  West  had  consented 
to  marry  him,  and  on  a  certain  date  he  was  going  to  San 
Francisco  to  get  her  to  come  up  and  put  the  house  in  order. 

At  the  appointed  time  he  left  for  San  Francisco.  He 
called  upon  the  lady — she  was  a  most  splendid  woman — and 
told  her  he  had  come  for  her.  Then,  in  the  most  delicate  and 
pleading  words  she  could  master,  she  told  him  that  she  had 
thought  that  she  loved  him  and  meant  to  marry  him,  but  that 
she  had  met  another,  and  from  that  hour  she  had  known  that 
it  w^ould  be  wrong  for  her  to  marry  any  other  man. 

Stewart  made  no  comment,  uttered  no  reproach,  exjDressed 
no  sorrow,  but  merelv  asked  the  name  of  the  favored  man. 


142  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

The  lady  told  him,  he  bade  her  good-bye  and  went  back  to 
his  hotel.  Soon,  ex-Senator  Foote — formerly  of  Mississippi, 
came  in,  and  seeing  Stewart,  asked  him  to  take  a  drink.  Stew- 
art acquiesced,  then  asked  Foote  to  drink,  and  they  made  a 
night  of  it  and  all  the  next  day,  and  part  of  the  second  night. 

They  had  reached  the  limit  and  were  lying  side  by  side  on 
the  floor  of  Stewart's  room,  when  Foote  said : 

"Stewart,  you  are  a  northern  man ;  your  political  princi- 
ples are  a  disgrace  to  the  world,  but  personally  I  like  you 
exceedingly,  and  it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  me  at  any  and  all 
times  to  serve  you  personally." 

"You  can  do  me  a  great  favor  right  now,"  said  Stewart. 
"I  want  your  permission  to  ask  your  daughter  Annie  to  be 
my  wife." 

"Well,"  said  Foote,  "as  I  told  you,  your  political  princi- 
ples are  a  disgrace,  but  you  are  clever,  and  I  never  go  back  on 
my  word,  suh.  Go  and  see  and  if  you  can  fix  up  things  with 
Annie  all  right.     She  might  do  worse." 

Stewart  straightened  up  as  rapidly  as  he  could,  and  when 
fully  himself,  he  called  upon  the  young  lady  and  asked  her 
to  be  his  wife.  She  wanted  a  little  time  to  consider  the  matter, 
but  Stewart  insisted  that  every  day  she  would  be  considering 
would  be  a  day  lost  for  them  both,  and  he  carried  his  point. 
\\'ithin  a  week  they  were  married.  Stewart  carried  his  bride 
triumphantly  home  and  it  was  a  long  time  before  Nevada  City 
people  new  that  Mrs.  Stewart  was  not  the  lady  that  he  had  all 
the  time  expected  to  marry. 

By  the  way,  the  other  lady  married  the  man  of  her  choice. 
The  pair  moved  to  Virginia  City  just  about  the  time  that  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Stewart  moved  there,  and  the  two  men  were  rivals 
professionally  and  politically  for  years,  Stewart  winning  more 
than  half  the  honors  professionally  and  all  the  honors  polit- 
ically.    But  the  other  was  the  abler  lawyer. 

The  Comstock  was  just  the  field  for  \\'illiam  M.  Stewart. 
The  laws  governing  mining  titles  at  the  time  were  confused 
and  often  of  doubtful  construction :  the  titles  sometimes  over- 
laid each  other  three  times  on  the  same  ground,  the  courts 
were  presided  over  in  great  part  by  judges  who  in  the  east  had 


WILLIAM   M.   STEWART.  143 

been  given  appointments  because  of  political  services  rendered 
congressmen;  the  majority  of  them  knew  little  of  the  science 
of  the  law  and  nothing  at  all  of  the  complications  they  would 
meet  in  the  west ;  many  of  them  were  as  corrupt  as  they  were 
stupid  ;  there  were  witnesses  who  could  be  educated ;  there  were 
jurors  who  were  not  there  because  of  the  climate ;  tremendous 
sums  were  often  at  stake,  and  fortunes  were  made  or  lost  on  the 
determination  of  a  case. 

In  such  a  field  William  M.  Stewart  was  entirely  at  home ; 
the  forces  around  him  were  such  as  he  loved  to  ride  and  control. 

Then  he  was,  personally,  much  liked  by  the  stormy  crowds 
that  surged  up  and  down  the  great  lode.  He  was  generous, 
never  apparently  caring  for  money,  a  host  was  always  ready 
to  back  him,  and  he  had  a  courage  that  never  failed  him  in  or 
out  of  court. 

Much  more  profound  lawyers  than  he  thundered  against 
him,  and  made  arguments  which  before  a  great  judge  would 
have  carried  absolute  conviction,  but  Stewart  was  never  fazed ; 
he  could  appeal  to  juries  and  to  those  chumps  of  judges  suc- 
cessfully, when  his  case  had  been  torn  to  shreds,  and  in  a  thou- 
sand adroit  ways  baffle  all  legitimate  conclusions. 

He  made  a  great  fortune  between  the  time  of  the  finding 
of  the  Comstock  and  the  creation  of  the  state  of  Nevada,  and 
then  was  in  such  a  position  that  it  was  conceded  on  all  sides 
that  he  would  be  one  of  the  first  United  States  senators. 

He  was  elected  almost  without  opposition. 

In  the  senate  his  first  work  was  to  frame  a  bill  defining 
how  quartz  veins  should  be  located,  their  extent,  and  what  the 
location  should  include,  pushed  it  through  both  houses  and 
never  rested  until  he  had  obtained  the  president's  signature. 
For  that  service  he  is  entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  every  mining 
man  in  the  nation. 

He  performed  much  other  splendid  work  for  his  constitu- 
ents and  for  the  west,  and  was  one  of  the  bulwarks  of  his  party 
in  the  senate  on  all  the  questions  that  were  sprung  in  recon- 
struction days.  He  was  a  stalwart  of  stalwarts.  Grant  leaned 
on  him,  so  did  Conkling,  Chandler,  Carpenter — all  of  them. 

He  maintained  his  place  as  one  of  the  foremost  senators 


144  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

until  the  silver  question  assumed  an  acute  stage.  So  sanguine 
was  he  in  the  righteousness  of  the  silver  cause  that  he  believed 
he  could  carry  the  senate  his  way.  He  did  not  realize  that  the 
cards  were  all  stacked  against  him  and  wdien  finally  told  by  a 
friend  that  he  was  fighting  a  hopeless  battle,  he  replied :  "I 
may  not  convince  them,  but  I  can  make  the  situation  almighty 
disagreeable  for  them." 

At  last,  when  he  began  to  speak  on  that  theme,  senators, 
one  by  one,  would  get  up  and  leave  the  hall.  The  gold  press, 
too,  assailed  him  with  anathemas  and  ridicule,  but  neither 
senators  nor  newspapers  could  answer  his  arguments,  and  they 
are  more  pertinent  today  than  when  delivered. 

Mr.  Stewart  left  the  senate  aften  serving  two  terms,  was 
re-elected  in  1885,  and  served  tw^o  terms  more. 

Filled  with  his  old  farmer  memories,  he  w-ent  over  into 
Virginia,  bought  a  farm  and  started  a  dairy.'  But  it  was  not 
a  financial  success.  When  his  last  term  in  the  senate  expired 
he  returned  to  Nevada,  built  a  fine  house  in  Bullfrog  and 
opened  a  law  office  and  remained  there  two  years  until  the 
titles  in  Goldfield  and  adjacent  camps  were  pretty  well  set- 
tled. He  then  returned  to  Washington  and  made  that  city  his 
home  until  in  about  1908  he  suddenly  died. 

He  was  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  men  who  ever  lifted 
his  head  above  the  level  in  California  and  Nevada ;  one  of  the 
most  forceful  personalities  in  the  nation. 

He  had  fine  legal  abilities,  though  not  of  the  highest,  but 
he  was  one  of  the  most  successful  lawyers  that  the  west  ever 
knew.  His  executive  abilities  were  wonderful.  He  would  have 
made  a  superb  state  governor,  a  broad,  enlightened  president 
of  a  continental  railroad  company,  and  a  much  more  able  pres- 
ident of  the  United  States  than  either  of  several  who  have  been 
presidents. 

In  preparing  a  case  for  trial  not  one  detail  was  omitted 
to  insure  success :  in  framing  up  a  political  campaign  he  was 
the  same  way. 

He  liked  to  make  money,  but  he  cared  little  for  it.  and 
rich  men  received  no  consideration  from  him  on  account 
of  their  wealth. 


i 


WILLIAM   M.   STE\\\\RT.  145 

When  one  very  rich  man  was  in  much  trouble  he  sent  for 
Stewart  to  help  him  out. 

Stewart  said:  "I  will  do  what  I  can  for  you,  l^ut  I  don't 
like  your  tone.  You  have  been  a  d — d  old  fool,  but  now  brace 
up  and  take  your  medicine." 

He  was  hearty  and  strong-  to  the  very  last,  and  did  not 
mind  a  champagne  dinner  that  lasted  all  night.  He  should 
have  lived  many  years  longer. 

For  some  ailment  he  submitted  to  a  petty  operation,  and 
died  next  day.  My  belief  is  that  he  died  from  the  effects  of 
the  anesthetic  administered  to  him. 

He  was  not  only  a  great  man,  but  one  of  the  very  truest  of 
friends.  His  loyalty  to  his  friends  was  one  of  the  very  finest 
of  his  manifold  attributes.  He  would  not  permit  any  one  to 
assail  a  friend  of  his  in  the  friend's  absence. 

He  early  clashed  with  President  Cleveland,  most  naturally 
on  the  silver  question.  Shortly  after  the  inauguration  of  Pres- 
ident McTvinley,  he  came  west.  I  asked  him  if  the  change  of 
presidents  would  make  any  difference  in  the  status  of  silver  in 
Washington.  He  thought  it  would  not.  I  said,  "The  change 
of  presidents  then  is  not  much  more  than  a  change  of  men?" 

He  replied :  "That  is  about  all  except  that  the  man  who  is 
now  president  is  a  gentleman." 

He  made  "The  House  of  Stewart"  a  great  house. 


"RED"  FRANK  WHEELER. 

THERE  were  two  prominent  Wheelers  in  Xevada,  one 
was  dark  and  swarthy  with  intensely  black  eyes  and 
hair;  the  other  was  light  with  reddish  brown  hair  and 
blue  eyes.  Being  in  the  same  town,  they  were  soon  designated 
"Red  Frank"  and  "Black  Frank." 

"Red"  Frank,  when  I  met  him  first,  had  a  saloon  and  eat- 
ing house  combined  in  Hamilton,  Nevada.  Moreover,  it  was 
a  central  station  for  business  men,  prominent  miners  and 
strangers  to  congregate. 

It  was  natural,  too,  for  "Red"  Frank  \Mieeler  was  both  a 
genius  and  master  spirit  among  men.  He  kept  an  eating  house 
and  saloon  because  he  was  not  very  rich,  but  many  a  duller 
man  has  been  given  high  places  and  earned  for  himself  high 
honors.  But  "Red"  Frank  did  not  care  for  honors.  His  theory 
was  that  a  man  should  get  all  the  good  he  could  out  of  life 
every  day,  for  there  was  no  certainty  for  the  morrow. 

That  winter  of  1868-69  was  a  tough  one  in  Hamilton; 
there  were  many  poor  men  there ;  many  in  want.  Hon.  P.  C. 
Hyman  was  mayor,  and  he  had  an  understanding  with  Wheeler 
that  his  orders  for  meals  would  be  honored  at  half  price,  and 
the  poor  were  fed. 

Then  the  smallpox  broke  out  and  became  epidemic ;  more- 
over, there  was  a  great  deal  of  pneumonia,  and  men  do  not 
last  long  with  pneumonia  at  an  altitude  of  8,500  feet  above  the 
sea.  The  calls  for  help  were  incessant,  but  they  were  promptly 
met.     In  this  work  "Red"  Frank  led. 

One  night  about  10  p.  m.,  just  as  the  mayor  was  about  to 
retire,  there  was  a  knock  on  the  door.  He  opened  the  door 
and  there  stood  "Red"  Frank. 

"What  is  it.  Frank?"  asked  the  mayor. 

"A  fine  mayor  you  are,"  was  the  reply.  "Fine  care  you 
are  taking  of  the  city,  and  the  reputation  of  your  friends." 

"What's  the  matter  with  you?"  asked  the  mayor. 

"You  had  better  ask."  said  Frank.     "You  know  there  are 


"RED"  FRAXK  WHEELER.  147 

some  boxes  piled  outside  my  place.  Well,  next  door  a  man  died 
of  smallpox  this  evening";  his  friends  stole  enough  of  my  boxes 
to  make  a  coffin,  then  returned  the  boxes  in  the  form  of  a 
coffin  and  piled  them  on  the  other  boxes." 

"W^ell,  what  have  I  to  do  with  that?"  asked  the  mayor. 

"Oh,  yes;"  said  Frank,  "of  course  you  are  innocent,  but 
have  you  not  the  care  of  the  smallpox  patients?" 

"Suppose  I  have,  how  am  I  concerned  if  men  steal  your 
boxes?"  asked  the  mayor. 

"But  they  have  brought  back  the  boxes,"  said  Frank. 

"Very  well,  what  is  your  growl  now?"  asked  the  mayor. 

"Why,  of  course,  nothing,"  said  Frank,  "only  the  man 
who  was  a  smallpox  patient  this  afternoon  is  in  the  box  and 
my  customers  swear  that  it  is  no  good  sign  for  a  first-class 
hostlery. 

"But  what  could  I  do,  at  this  time  of  night?"  asked  the 
mayor. 

"You  can  come  and  help  me !"  was  Frank's  answer. 
"Everybody  is  panicky.  You  and  myself  must  see  to  this 
funeral." 

The  mayor  put  on  his  hat  and  coat.  They  two  took  the 
coffin  and  carried  it  down  to  near  the  Big  Smoky  mill,  when 
they  met  a  man  with  a  team.  They  told  him  what  they  wanted, 
but  when  he  learned  of  what  the  man  had  died,  whipped  up 
his  horses  and  drove  away. 

"Red"  Frank  looked  as  he  disappeared  and  then  said : 
"Mr.  Mayor,  that  man  ought  to  start  a  dairy !" 

"I  give  it  up,"  said  the  mayor,  "what's  the  joke?" 

"Why,  is  not  his  breast  running  over  with  the  milk  of 
Iniman  kindness?"  was  Frank's  answer. 

They  picked  up  the  rude  casket  and  carried  it  a  little  way, 
when  they  met  another  team.  They  told  the  driver ;  he  swung 
his  team  around  and  said:  "Put  the  box  on  the  sled  and 
iump  on  yourselves !"  He  drove  them  to  the  cemetery.  There 
they  found  picks  and  spades,  shoveled  the  snow  awav,  and 
^unk  a  grave.  The  ground  was  frozen  more  than  two  feet  deep, 
but  they  persevered,  finished  the  grave,  dropped  the  box  into  it 
and  filled  it  up,  and  as  they  returned  to  town  the  east  was 


148  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


beginning  to  shoot  up  the  first  signals  of  approaching  dawn. .] 

As  they  were  about  to  separate,  Frank  said  :  "Mr.  Mayor, 
if  you  won't  say  anything  about  this  I  won't;  you  have  done 
so  many  mean  things  that  no  one  wih  beheve  you  if  you  do 
tell ;  but,  honest,  I  did  not  want  that  sign  out  on  my  boxes 
when  morning  came." 

Frank  was  careless  about  taking  care  of  his  money,  and 
one  night,  to  scare  him  into  more- careful  habits,  some  friends 
went  to  his  bed,  woke  him  up  and  told  him  the  safe  had  been 
robbed. 

He  looked  very  grave  for  a  minute,  then  turning  to  his 
clerk — who  had  just  come  on  watch,  asked  how  much  money 
belonging  to  outside  people  was  in  the  safe.  The  clerk  replied, 
"Between  fifteen  and  sixteen  thousand  dollars." 

Then  Frank's  face  relaxed  and  he  said:  "Never  mind,  I 
have  enough  to  make  that  good."  He  was  not  thinking  of  his 
own  loss,  but  of  those  who  had  deposited  money  in  his  safe. 

Before  going  to  Hamilton,  Frank  had  lived  long  in  Austin. 
Nevada,  and  knew  everyone  in  eastern  Nevada. 

So,  when  J.  P.  Jones  became  a  candidate  for  senator  in 
1872,  Frank  went  to  Gold  Hill  to  look  after  his  campaign. 

In  a  brief  time  the  candidate  became  wonderfully  attached 
to  Frank,  and  when  elected  senator  still  kept  him  in  his  employ. 

Frank  went  as  a  delegate  to  the  Republican  national  con- 
vention at  Cincinnati,  which  nominated  Hayes  and  Wheeler. 
Frank  originally  was  an  Ohio  man  and  knew  Cincinnati  as  well 
as  he  did  Virginia  City.  He  happened  to  stop  at  the  same 
hotel  that  the  candidate  for  vice  president  did.  At  night  after 
the  nominations,  a  brass  band  came  around  to  serenade  the  can- 
didate. The  two  gentlemen  had  rooms  on  different  streets  and 
the  serenading  party  got  on  Frank's  side  and  played  "Hail  to 
the  Chief."  Frank  had  not  retired,  and  while  the  band  was 
playing  some  instinct  told  him  that  it  was  a  mistake,  so  when 
the  crowd  began  to  shout  "Wheeler,  Wheeler!"  he  stepped  out 
upon  the  balcony  and  was  greeted  by  a  storm  of  cheers.  Then 
a  sudden  silence  fell  and  Frank,  knowing  what  was  expected, 
rose  to  the  occasion  with : 

"Gentlemen  and  fellow  citizens!    I  thank  vou  sincerelv  for 


I 


"RED"  FRANK  WHEELER.  149 

!  this  great  honor,  but  I  hold  it  as  not  intended  for  me,  but  for 
tlie  great  office  for  which  the  convention  today  named  me. 

"But  the  nomination  already  has  brought  a  burden  upon 
me,  not  that  I  fear  defeat,  for  when  I  run  for  office  I  am 
always  elected.  But  the  whisper  is  already  in  my  ear :  "Can 
you  fill  the  expectations  of  your  countrymen  when  elected." 

"Your  visit  tonight  encourages  me,  for  what  American 
can  fail  when  his  arms  are  upheld  by  the  confidence  and  sup- 
port of  his  fellow-countrymen  ? 

"Our  country  has  been  torn  by  a  terrible  war,  and  since 
its  thunders  died  away  it  has  been  tossed  as  is  a  great  ship 
when,  in  the  midst  of  furious  seas,  the  winds  are  suddenly  laid, 
and  the  ship  loses  steerage  way  and  rolls  and  wallows  in  the 
confused  waste  of  waves.  But,  gentlemen.  I  have  a  happy  pre- 
monition that  when  the  great  soldier  statesman  named  today 
for  president  is  elected  an  era  of  peace  will  follow.  I  need 
not  tell  you  that  if  I  shall  be  elected  vice  president,  I  shall  so 
preside  over  the  senate  that  I  hope  the  entire  senate  will  agree 
that  in  whatever  else  I  may  fail,  I  have  known  no  north,  no 
south,  no  east,  no  west,  in  my  rulings. 

"Thanking  you  once  more  for  this  high  compliment  and 
with  a  prayer  that  the  wounds  of  our  c(^untry  may  soon  be  all 
healed,  I  bid  you  a  happy  good  night." 

Returning  to  Nevada,  Frank  was  asked  about  his  speech 
when  he  replied :  "It  was  a  great  speech  under  the  circum- 
stances, but  the  newspaper  cut  out  nearly  all  the  telling  points 
that  I  made,  and  the  landlord  of  the  hotel  doubled  my  bill  after 
he  read  it." 

^^'hen  asked  if  it  was  true  that  the  band  played  a  funeral 
march  as  they  retired,  he  answered :  "You  cannot  tell  what 
those  Dutch  in  Cincinnati  are  going  to  do  until  they  do  it." 

After  a  while  Frank's  health  began  to  fail.  He  had  been 
burning  life's  candle  at  both  ends  for  many  years. 

At  last  he  called  upon  two  eminent  physicians  in  San 
Francisco  and  asked  them  to  look  him  over.  They  did  so,  and 
then  asked  him  about  his  habits  of  life  for  the  previous  ten  or 
fifteen  years.  He  answered  them  frankly,  keeping  back  nothing. 


150  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Then  one  of  them  said:  *Tf  that  is  true  we  can  save  you 
some  suffering,  1)ut  we  cannot  long  keep  you  aHve." 

"I  knew  it,"  said  Frank.  "I  knew  it  when  I  came  to  see 
you.  I  was  only  curious  to  see  if  you  gentlemen  were  well  up 
in  your  profession." 

A  little  later  he  could  no  longer  leave  his  bed.  Then  he 
sent  for  his  great  friend,  "Red"  Davis,  and  said  to  him :  "Did 
we  not  make  a  compact  once  in  Austin?"  Davis  answered 
"Yes."  "What  was  it?"  asked  Frank.  Davis  replied.  "That 
whichever  of  us  was  called  first,  the  other  should  see  that  he 
had  a  gentleman's  funeral,  even  if  he  had  to  beg,  borrow  or 
steal  the  money. 

"Correct,"  said  Frank,  "I  shall  need  your  services  sooner 
•  than  you  think." 

"Oh,  you  will  be  all  right  in  a  few  days,  do  not  talk  about 
cjuitting,"  said  Davis. 

Then  Frank  said :  "You  don't  know  much,  old  friend. 
"My  constitution  was  gone  years  ago.  Since  then  I  have  been 
living  on  the  by-laws,  and  they  are  beyond  amendment  now." 

A  few  days  later  he  died.  An  hour  before  his  death  Davis 
called  to  see  him.  He  was  conscious,  but  could  not  articulate. 
He  made  a  feeble  motion  which  the  nurse  could  not  under- 
stand, but  Davis  did,  and  said  to  the  nurse :  "He  wants  a 
toddy." 

The  nurse  made  the  toddy  and  held  it  to  his  lips,  but 
Frank  feebly  shook  his  head,  looking  at  Davis.  Then  Davis 
said:    "He  wants  me  to  have  one." 

The  nurse  made  a  second  one  and  gave  it  to  Davis,  then 
held  the  first  one  to  Frank's  lips.  With  the  ghost  of  a  smile 
he  drank,  and  a  few  minutes  later  ceased  to  live. 

He  was  careless  of  himself.  He  might  have  made  a  great 
name,  but  he  was  indifferent  to  all  that.  He  worked  hard,  his 
whole  life's  pathway  w^as  lined  with  good  deeds  and  he  died 
as  he  had  lived,  without  reproach,  without  fear. 


JAMES  W.  NYE. 

HE  WAS  not  an  Argonaut;  not  even  a  Nevada  pioneer, 
but  came  by  appointment  as  governor  of  Nevada  when 
the  territory  was  carved  out  of  western  Utah.  But  he 
would  have  been  a  marked  addition,  had  he  joined  the  first 
company  of  forty-niners. 

He  was  New  York  l^orn  and  bred :  grew  up  in  poverty ; 
studied  law,  practiced  law  in  all  the  courts ;  was  always  a  suc- 
cess, and  at  home  among  every  class  of  people,  from  the  fire 
Jackie  of  New  York  City  to  the  President  of  the  United  States ; 
from  Captain  Jim  of  the  Washoe  Tribe  to  Abraham  Lincoln ; 
and  on  the  rostrum,  from  a  bunch  of  cowboys  to  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States.  He  was  nearly  sixty  years  of  age  when 
he  reached  Nevada.  He  was  given  a  public  reception  and  when 
it  was  over  the  verdict  was  that  he  would  do.  About  five  feet 
ten  inches  in  height  and  massive,  weighing  about  200  pounds ; 
small  and  high-born  feet  and  hands,  and  with  about  the  hand- 
somest, most  expressive  face  that  was  ever  given  a  man. 

His  eyes  were  coal  black,  but  they  were  dancing  eyes,  like 
those  of  Sisyphus,  and  snow-white  hair  down  upon  his  shoul- 
ders, like  Henry  W^ard  Beecher's.  In  repose  his  face  was  most 
striking,  but  the  play  of  his  features  was  wonderful ;  every 
emotion  found  expression  in  his  face.  Had  he  chosen  an 
actor's  career,  I  am  sure  that  he  would  have  stood  first  among 
actors  in  his  generation  in  all  roles  from  Falstaff  to  Macbeth  ; 
though  he  would  have  failed,  probably,  in  Shylock.  for  when 
Bas?anio  and  Antonio  failed  to  pav.  he  would  have  hunted 
up  the  latter  and  said.  "Brace  up.  Tony;  if  you  need  a  little 
ready  money,  while  I  have  none  myself,  I  will  send  you  to  a 
man  who  has  plenty  and  whom  T  think  \'ou  can  work  for  a 
loan." 

He  was  one  of  the  most  intense  of  Americans,  and  had 
the  full  courage  of  his  convictions.  Had  trouble  come  in 
Nevada  as  was  predicted  and  threatened  in  the  early  sixties, 
CiDvernor  Nve  would  have  been  what  Governor  Morton  was 


152  AS  I  RE^IEMBER  THEM. 

in  Indiana.  On  the  rostrum  he  was  a  very  glory  of  the  earth, 
for  he  was  familiar  with  every  phase  of  human  nature :  it  was 
impossible  to  take  him  by  surprise;  it  was  a  delight  to  have 
someone  interrupt  him  and  hear  him  flash  back  a  reply  that 
settled  the  question.  He  was  making  a  speech  in  Eureka, 
Nevada,  one  night  after  the  war  closed,  and  reconstruction 
had  not  quite  run  its  unfortunate  course. 

He  was  saying  that  the  men  of  the  South  were  our  broth- 
ers; that  they  had  got  off  wrong;  that  many  of  them  were  still 
angry,  but  he  was  looking  forward  to  the  day  which  he 
believed  was  coming  soon,  when  their  old  devotion  would  come 
back,  and  through  their  generous  natures  again  fully  awak- 
ened would  be  once  more  as  they  were  at  Buena  Vista, 
when  the  struggle  was  to  see  which  state  could  honor  most  the 
land  which  the  fathers  had  bequeathed  to  us.  Just  then  ]^Iajor 
McCoy,  who  was  a  Mexican  war  veteran,  but  who  in  the 
great  war  had  been  so  fierce  a  secessionist  that  when  the  con- 
federacy collapsed  he  had  expatriated  himself  and  gone  to 
Mexico  to  remain  there  some  years,  interrupted  with  the  ques- 
tion:  "Senator,  if  those  are  your  sentiments,  why  are  you  so 
loath  to  giving  Southern  men  full  official  recognition?"' 

The  old  jolly  look  came  over  Nye's  face,  and  he  said  : 
"When  I  was  a  boy  I  was  walking  one  very  cold  winter  day 
from  Bridgeport,  on  Oneida  Lake,  to  Syracuse,  when,  hearing 
sleighbells  coming  rapidly.  I  stepped  out  into  the  snow  to  let 
the  sleigh  pass.  It  proved  to  be  a  fancy  New  York  cutter 
drawn  by  a  span  of  perfectly  matched  Black  Hawk  horses. 
The  trappings  on  the  horses  were  silver-plated ;  the  cutter  was 
filled  with  fine  robes  and  was  driven  by  a  middle-aged  man. 
As  the  rig  flashed  by  me  it  was,  to  my  eyes,  a  vision  of  beauty. 
The  man  saw  me  and  as  soon  as  he  could  pull  up  the  team 
- — the  morning  was  frosty  and  the  steppers  were  pushing  the 
bits  hard — called  to  me  to  come  quick  and  get  in.  I  ran  and 
climbed  in,  the  man  holding  the  team  steady  with  one  hand  and 
with  the  other  tucked  me  all  up  with  one  robe  and  then  drew 
a  second  robe  over  my  lap  and  I  knew  I  had  struck  a  bonanza. 

"By  this  time  the  Hawks  were  fairly  flying — you  know 
they  can  only  strike  about  a  three-minute  clip,  but  can  keep 


JAMES  W.  NYE.  153 

it  up  all  day.  The  man  was  talking  low  to  them  and  I  know 
now  that  they  were  making  his  arms  ache.  This  went  on  for 
about  fifteen  minutes.  I  was  snug  and  warm  under  the  robes, 
when  I  looked  up  at  the  man  and  proposed  that  he  give  me 
the  reins,  telling  him  that  I  knew  lots  about  horses.  He 
glanced  down  at  me  and  said:  "My  boy,  when  you  grow  wise 
you  will  know  more  than  you  do  now  and  will  learn  that  an 
invitation  to  ride  does  not  carry  with  it  any  obligation  to  let  you 
drive."    The  major  asked  no  more  questions. 

Just  after  the  war  he  was  making  a  speech.  The  pas- 
sions of  all  men  were  strung  to  their  utmost  tension  in  those 
days,  and  he  was  explaining  all  that  was  being  done  to  recon- 
struct the  south,  when  some  one  in  the  audience  said,  "But, 
senator,  the  war  is  over." 

He  made  two  strides  forward  on  the  stage  and  with  eyes 
blazing,  thundered :  "Yes ;  but  for  an  original  unrepentant 
rebel  there  is  no  cure  save  through  death ;  no  justification  save 
through  ages  of  hell  fire." 

But  he  did  not  mean  it.  Hearing  that  a  confederate  offi- 
cer who  was  a  close  friend  of  one  of  his  own  friends,  was  in 
prison  in  Fort  Lafayette,  under  a  charge  that,  when  captured,  he 
was  within  the  federal  lines  as  a  spy,  Nye  first  went  to  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  and  obtained  a  pardon  for  the  man,  then  went  up 
to  Fort  Lafayette,  got  the  man  released,  advised  him  to  quietly 
take  the  first  steamer  for  California,  then  to  go  to  Nevada ; 
gaxe  him  a  list  of  names  of  g-ood  fellows  out  there,  put  a 
roll  of  $L200  greenbacks  in  his  hand  and  bade  him  good-bye. 
He  explained  later  that  the  greenbacks  w-ere  worth  only  forty- 
seven  cents  on  the  dollar,  so  he  was  not  out  much. 

He  and  the  late  Senator  Stewart  were  the  first  senators 
from  Nevada  to  Washington.  Nye's  seat  was  next  to  that  of 
Senator  Sumner  of  Massachusetts. 

Thev  became  warm  personal  friends,  for  as  Nye  said : 
"Sumner  meant  well,  even  if  he  did  not  know  much."  He 
said  when  he  first  took  his  seat,  Sumner  looked  down  upon  him 
from  an  infinite  height  and  said,  with  all  dignity :  "Good  morn- 
ing. Senator  Nye."  "Good  morning,"  Senator  Sumner,"  was 
the  reply.     Tn  the  course  of  a  few  days  Sumner  began  to  relax 

11 


154  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

and  one  morning  said :  "Good  morning,  Mr.  Nye."  And  Nye, 
responding,  said:  "Good  morning,  Air.  Sumner."  "After 
about  a  month,"  said  Nye,  "I  went  in  one  morning  and  Sumner 
said :  'Good  morning,  James,'  and  I  said :  'Charlie,  my  boy, 
how  are  you?'  " 

The  second  year  Nye  was  in  the  Senate  a  furious  debate 
was  sprung  on  some  question  of  the  management  of  the  war, 
and  one  senator  grossly  criticised  President  Lincohi.  When 
the  speech  was  finished,  Nye  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  for  twenty 
minutes  held  the  Senate  spellbound.  The  burden  of  the  speech 
was  to  picture  the  mighty  burdens  under  which  the  patient 
president  was  staggering  and  the  cowardice  of  senators  who,  in 
such  a  crisis,  instead  of  holding  up  his  hands,  would  add  to 
these  burdens.  Nye  had  a  private  key  to  a  side-door  in  the 
White  House,  and  went  there  nights  to  "swap  stories"  with 
Lincoln. 

Nye  received  a  letter  one  day,  informing  him  that  a  bri- 
gade of  New  York  soldiers,  stationed  at  some  point  in  Arkan- 
sas or  Missouri,  had  been  overlooked  and  were  suffering  for 
food  and  clothing.  Next  morning  he  called  at  the  war  office 
and  sent  in  his  card  to  Secretary  Stanton.  He  told  me  that 
he  wrote  under  his  name — the  only  time  he  ever  did  it  in  his 
life — "U.  S.  Senator."  He  was  shown  in.  Stanton  was  stand- 
ing behind  a  little  counter,  and  as  Nye  approached,  Stanton 
said  curtly:  "What  can  I  do  for  you,  sir?"  Nye  presented  the 
letter  and  asked  the  secretary  to  read  it.  Stanton  glanced  over 
it  hastily,  and  pushing  it  back,  said  sharply :  "I  have  no  time 
for  these  little  things."  "Will  you  please  take  the  time,  sir?" 
said  Nye.  Then  Stanton  said  hotly :  "Do  you  know  who  you 
are  talking  to,  sir?"  Nye  stepped  up  close  to  the  counter  and. 
holding  out  one  finger,  said :  "You  will  change  that  tone  of 
yours  right  quick  or  you  will  know  very  soon  who  you  are 
talking  to."  "Then,"  said  Nye,  "we  glared  at  each  other  for 
a  second  or  two,  and  then  Stanton  opened  a  little  door  in  the 
counter  and  said  politely :  'Walk  in.  Senator  Nye.'  and  we  had 
everything  fixed  in  five  minutes."  He  added:  "Something 
about  the  incident  seemed  to  please  the  clerks  within  hearing 
a  good  deal." 


JAMES  W.  NYE.  155 

One  day  in  the  Senate  Sumner  made  one  of  his  mean 
speeches,  asserting-  that  no  great  race  had  ever  sprung  from 
below  latitude  37.40.  As  Sumner  sat  down  Nye  arose,  and, 
being  instantly  recognized,  explained  that  he  would  take  but  a 
moment  of  the  time  of  the  Senate,  that  he  desired  only  to  call 
attention  to  the  unfortunate  fact  that  the  learned  senator  from 
Massachusetts  had  not  lived  prior  to  the  coming  of  our  Savior, 
because,  had  he  done  so,  when  the  Messiah  came  to  give  in- 
structions to  his  disciples  he  would  have  said :  "Go  ye  forth 
and  preach  the  gospel  to  all  peoples,  nations  and  tongues,  north 
of  37.40,"  and  sat  down. 

Sumner  turned  to  him  and  said :  "There  is  no  argument 
in  that."  To  which  Nye  responded:  "Of  course  not.  There 
was  not  a  trace  of  sense  in  what  you  said." 

Nye  had  the  scriptures  at  his  finger  ends.  In  the  hot 
campaign  of  1868  the  national  committees  sent  Nye  up  to  a 
town  in  Connecticut  to  make  a  Republican  speech.  He 
reached  the  place  about  noon.  The  local  committee  met  and 
welcomed  him,  but  explained  that  it  would  be  useless  to  try 
to  have  a  political  meeting,  that  the  whole  region  thereabouts 
had  gone  wild  over  a  religious  revival,  that  they  were  holding 
services  day  and  night  and  that  the  work  of  grace  was  doing 
wonders. 

Nye  told  them  that  he  was  glad  of  it,  that  he  did  not  want 
to  make  a  political  speech,  but  would  like  to  attend  their  after- 
noon meeting,  adding  that  while  not  a  member  of  any  church. 
he  had  a  Christian  mother,  and  if  he  might  be  allowed  to  speak 
for  a  few  minutes  he  believed  he  might  interest  the  children. 

This  was  hailed  with  delight,  and  when  the  great  congre- 
gation had  assembled  in  a  grove  in  the  open  air,  the  head 
deacon  explained  to  the  audience  that  a  rare  treat  was  in 
store  for  them,  that  the  great  "gray  eagle.  Senator  Nye"  of 
Nevada  was  present ;  that  while  not  a  professed  Christian  he 
was  brought  up  under  Christian  auspices  and  had  kindly  con- 
sented to  address  the  congregation.  Nye  was  then  presented 
and  turned  that  sovereign  face  of  his  upon  the  audience.  His 
own  account  was  like  this: 

"T  looked  them  over  a  minute  and  they  became  very  still. 


156  AS  I  RE^I EMBER  THEM. 

Then,  as  impressively  as  I  could,  I  repeated  the  twenty-third 
Psalm,  beginning,  'The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,  I  shall  not 
want.'  Then  I  gave  them  a  few  flirts  from  Job  and  a  couple 
of  rib-roasters  from  Isaiah,  and  in  fifteen  minutes  I  was  giving 
them  as  robust  a  Republican  speech  as  they  ever  heard.  I  held 
them  for  two  hours,  and  when  I  closed  I  noticed  an  old  girl 
who  was  sitting  in  the  front  row  wiping  her  eyes,  and  could  not 
help  hearing  her  say:  'The  gentleman  may  not  be  a  profes- 
sor, but  nothing  can  convince  me  that  he  is  not  full  of  saving 
grace.'  " 

It  was  a  custom  in  mining  towns  for  merchants  to  keep 
donkeys,  so  when  an  outside  miner  bought  a  bill  of  goods,  they 
were  packed  on  a  donkey,  the  miner  led  him  to  his  cabin, 
unloaded  the  pack  and  turned  the  donkey  loose.  The  wise 
creature  would  at  once  return  to  town. 

Nye  was  speaking  in  Austin,  Nevada,  one  of  those  match- 
less Nevada  summer  nights,  and  everybody  was  out  to  hear 
him.  He  had  hardly  got  under  way  when  a  donkey  started 
around  the  crowd  on  a  fast  trot,  braying  as  though  his  heart 
was  breaking.  It  seemed  as  though  he  would  never  stop,  and 
when  he  did,  the  echoes  came  back  almost  as  distinct  and  loud 
from  old  Mount  Toyabe,  and,  of  course,  the  audience  was  con- 
vulsed. It  was  ten  minutes  before  the  tumult  was  settled. 
Then  Nye,  stretching  out  his  hand,  said :  ''Ladies  and  gentle- 
men, that  does  not  disturb  me  in  the  least.  I  have  never  tried 
to  make  a  Republican  speech  in  Nevada  that  the  opposition 
have  not  trotted  out  their  best  speakers  to  try  and  down  me.'' 

Senator  Nye  was  called  upon  once  to  address  a  gathering 
of  Sunday  school  children.  The  burden  of  his  talk  was  that 
the  utmost  care  should  be  taken  to  see  that  children  receive 
upon  their  plastic  hearts  only  good  impressions,  so  lasting 
were  thev.  To  accentuate  his  words  he  drew  a  fifty-cent  piece 
from  his  pocket,  held  it  before  the  children,  and  told  them  that 
when  a  small  boy  that  silver  piece  had  been  given  him  by  the 
great  Daniel  \A'ebster,  that  foremost  of  statesmen. 

Then  he  told  them  that  since  then  he  had  often  been  hun- 
gry, often  cnld,  for  in  childhood  he  had  not  sufficient  clothing 
for  a  New  York  winter ;  often  he  had  seen  dainties  which  he 


JAMES  W.  NYE.  157 

co\eteci.  but  that  nothing  could  ever  induce  him  to  part  witli 
that  silver,  for  it  had  been  held  in  the  hand  of  the  matchless 
Webster,  and  by  that  hand  given  to  him.  By  this  time  he  was 
overcome  with  emotion,  and  was  crying,  and  so  were  half  the 
women  and  children  before  him. 

\Mien  he  finished  and  was  retiring  from  the  hall  a  friend 
said  to  him:  "Senator,  where  did  you  get  that  half  dollar?" 
"Got  it  from  a  bootblack  this  morning,"  was  the  reply. 

He  was  riding  on  the  cars  in  Central  New  York  one 
mornino-  when  he  saw  an  old  man  in  another  seat  whose  face 
seemed  familiar.  He  studied  the  face  for  several  minutes, 
when  a  leaf  of  memory  turned  in  his  brain,  and,  going  over 
and  sitting  down  by  the  old  man,  he  said :  "Is  not  your  name 
Baxter?"    The  man  said  it  was. 

"Well,"  said  Nye,  "do  you  remember  that  a  little  after 
daylight  one  November  morning  some  forty-five  years  ago  you 
took  into  your  house  a  fourteen-year-old  boy  who  had  been 
walking  on  the  tow-path  of  the  canal  all  night;  took  him  in, 
gave  him  a  hot  breakfast — sausage  and  eggs  and  buckwheat 
cakes  and  honey,  pumpkin-pie  and  coffee ;  how  your  wife  gave 
him  a  pair  of  shoes  and  stockings,  a  muffler  for  his  neck  and 
mittens,  and  when  he  went  away  filled  his  pockets  with  Rhode 
Island  Greening-  apples,  doughnuts,  gingerbread  and  cheese?" 

The  old  man  said  he  did  recall  something  of  the  kind. 

"Well,  I  was  that  boy."  said  Nye,  "and  I  wanted  to  ask  if 
your  wife  was  still  spared  to  you,  and  if  all  was  well  with  you." 

The  man  replied  that  his  wife  was  still  with  him,  but  that 
he  had  been  unfortunate ;  that  he  was  forced  some  years  before 
to  mortgage  their  little  farm  for  $800;  that  now,  with  interest, 
costs  and  lawyers'  fees  the  debt  amounted  to  within  a  few  dol- 
lars of  $1,400:  that  the  sheriff  would  sell  the  place  at  noon  that 
day  at  Little  Falls :  that  he  was  on  the  way  to  see  who  bid  it 
in  and  to  see  if  he  could  get  a  lease  from  the  buyer  so  that  his 
wife  would  not  be  forced  to  give  up  her  old  home.  •  Then  the 
old  man  burst  into  tears.  Nye  told  him  that  he  was  a  lawyer ; 
that  he,  too,  was  going  to  Little  Falls,  and  would  accompany 
him  to  the  sale:  that  he  might  help  him  in  fixing  up  the  ]:)apers. 

They  went  to  the  sale  together.     Nye  found  out  the  exact 


158  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

amount  of  the  mortgage  and  costs,  bid  in  the  property,  had 
the  sheriff  make  out  the  deed  in  Baxter's  wife's  name,  paid 
the  money,  placed  the  deed  in  the  old  man's  hands  and  told  him 
to  go  home  and  tell  his  wife  that  the  home  would  always  be 
hers.  He  further  told  him  that  really  the  money  had  cost  him 
nothing,  that  it  was  a  fee  a  client,  one  King  Faro,  had  paid  him 
for  a  trifling  service. 

The  old  man  was  overcome  and  asked  Nye  where  he  could 
be  found.  Nye  told  him  in  the  Senate  chamber  at  Washing- 
ton. Four  weeks  later  the  old  man  and, his  wife  found  him 
in  Washington,  and  Nye,  speaking  of  it,  said  later:  "If  the 
great  bookkeeper  up  above  saw  that  meeting,  it's  a  twenty 
dollar  piece  to  a  ducat  that,  with  their  gratitude,  he  balanced  a 
mighty  tough  column  that  he  held  in  his  ledger  against  me." 

But  this  is  growing  too  long.  With  the  most  character- 
istic story  of  Nye  ever  told,  we  will  close. 

He  went  to  Europe  one  summer  late  in  the  sixties,  and 
went  as  far  as  Constantinople.  He  wired  the  American  min- 
ister there  that  he  was  coming.  The  minister  informed  the 
Grand  Vizier  that  a  senator  of  the  United  States  would  arrive 
in  the  city  that  evening.  He  informed  the  Sultan  and  the 
Sultan  ordered  a  review  of  all  the  30,000  soldiers  in  the  city 
the  next  day  in  his  honor — those  superb  soldiers  that  stood  off 
Skobelorff  so  long  at  Plevna,  a  little  later.  We  take  up 
the  story  as  Nye  told  it :  "They  gave  me  a  pure  Arabian  horse 
to  ride.  You  should  have  seen  him.  Eyes  like  an  eagle's, 
nostrils  you  could  put  your  fist  in.  coat  like  velvet,  and  he  felt 
under  vou  like  steel  springs,  but  still  was  biddable  as  a  great, 
good-natured,  friendly  Newfoundland  dog.  I  rode  him  through 
the  review  and  divided  honors  with  the  Sultan.  On  dismount- 
ing I  could  not  repress  my  admiration  for  the  horse.  The 
interpreter  explained  what  I  had  said  to  the  Grand  Vizier, 
whereupon  he  made  a  very  low  salaam,  saying  something  as  he 
bowed.  The  interpreter  explained  that  his  highness,  the  Grand 
Vizier,  begged  to  be  accorded  the  honor  of  presenting  the  horse 
to  my  excellency.  I  made  a  rapid  calculation.  I  had  not  the 
monev  to  pay  the  freight  on  him ;  I  could  think  of  no  one  to 
whom  I  might  send  for  the  freight  money,  and  so  I  took  high 


JAMES  W.  NYE.  159 

oromul.  I  made  a  salaam  that  must  have  made  the  Grand 
Vizier's  look  like  an  amateur's  and  bade  that  interpreter  explain 
to  his  highness  how  honored  I  would  feel  to  receive  so  royal  a 
present,  but  that  it  was  against  the  constitution  and  laws  of 
the  great  republic,  my  country,  for  a  senator  of  the  United 
States  to  receive  any  present  from  any  foreign  prince,  potentate 
or  power." 

A  moment  later,  he  said :  "Why,  do  you  know,  had  I 
have  had  that  freight  money  I  would  not  have  taken  $2,000 
for  my  chance  on  that  horse?" 

Nye  was  twelve  years  senator  from  Nevada,  but  was 
defeated  in  the  election  of  1878.  He  left  San  Francisco  on 
the  steamer,  apparently  well,  but  after  arriving  home  he  was 
found  wandering  daft  in  the  streets  of  Richmond,  Va.  He 
could  not  explain  how  he  got  there.  He  was  taken  to  Bloom- 
ingdale  asvlum,  where  he  died  a  few  months  later. 


JOHN  W.  MACKAY. 

WHEN  I  heard  the  news  of  the  death  of  Mr.  Mackay 
I  thought  instinctively  of  the  old  Persian  legend, 
and  said  to  myself :  "Had  he  died  in  a  deep  wil- 
derness, as  did  the  old  king,  all  the  lions  in  the  forest  would 
have  assembled,  the  strongest  and  stateliest  of  them  would 
have  taken  up  their  stations  around  him  and  held  ward  and 
watch  until  men  came  to  bear  the  body  away  for  sepulchre, 
for  the  instinct  that  a  masterful  soul  had  fled  would  have  come 
to  the  forest  and  its  sovereigns  would  have  gathered  to  guard 
the  dust  which  had  been  that  soul's  tabernacle." 

When  the  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln-  took  its  flight,  the 
light  shining  back  from  it  caused  the  children  of  men  all  around 
the  world  to  stop  in  awe,  and  the  men  of  his  own  race  through 
their  tears  to  see  how  dimmed  had  been  their  eyes,  how  feeble 
their  comprehension  of  the  man  of  sorrows  who  had  been  their 
President. 

But  Mr.  Mackay  had  been  but  an  humble  citizen.  No 
official  honors  had  any  lure  for  him ;  he  had  never  sought  any 
notoriety  and  to  the  world  at  large  he  went  to  his  grave  merely 
as  one  of  the  world's  rich  men,  though  the  highest  in  the  land, 
east  and  west,  had  besought  him  to  accept  a  United  States 
senatorship. 

Only  a  few  of  us  who  had  found  out  his  real  nature  know 
his  sterling  worth,  the  motives  that  guided  his  life,  the  real 
nature  of  his  high  soul,  and  the  splendor  of  his  character. 

He  was  five  feet  ten  inches  in  height,  weighed  one  hundred 
and  sixty-five  pounds,  his  eyes  were  blue-gray,  his  hair  brown, 
his  complexion  ruddy — that  ruddiness  that  comes  where  the 
warm  air  blowing  across  the  Gulf  stream  keeps  Erin  perpetu- 
ally green.  I  never  saw  him  show  anything  like  exultation 
over  being  rich,  but  once,  and  that  was  but  a  flash  of  his  eyes. 
In  the  winter  of  1876-7  the  famine  was  sore  in  Ireland.  I 
mentioned  it  in  his  presence  one  day.  He  said,  "Yes,"  but 
added :     "Tliere  are  a  good  many  poor  people  right  here,  but 


JOHN  W.  MACKAY.  161 

yon  may  thank  God  that  none  of  them  are  either  cold  or 
hungry." 

W'e  did  not  know  the  truth  until  later,  and  found  it  out 
then  l)y  accident.  In  the  previous  October  all  the  southeast 
half  of  Virginia  City  was  destroyed  by  fire,  including  the  Con 
Cal  Virginia  and  other  hoisting  works,  offices,  etc.  In  the 
crisis  of  the  fire,  when  the  miners  were  dynamiting  the  houses 
on  the  west  side  of  D  street,  and  filling  the  shafts  to  a  depth 
of  thirty  feet  to  where  the  cages  had  been  lowered,  with  bags 
of  sand,  and  covering  the  floors  of  the  hoisting  works  around 
the  cages  with  sand  two  or  three  feet  deep  and  Mr.  Mackay 
was  e\'erywhere  directing  the  work,  a  devout  old  Irish  lady 
approached  him  and  said :  "Oh,  Mr.  Mackay,  the  cliurch  is 
on  fire!"  All  the  answer  that  he  vouchsafed  was,  "D — n  the 
church,  we  can  build  another  if  we  can  keep  tlie  fire  from 
going  down  these  shafts!" 

The  old  lady  went  a^^■ay  shocked,  but  next  morning  Mr. 
Mackay  called  upon  Father — later  Bishop  Monogue  and  said : 
"There  is  a  good  deal  of  suffering  here,  Father.  If  I  try  to 
help  personally  I  shall  be  caught  by  two  or  three  grafters  and 
then  will  be  liable  to  insult  some  worthy  men  and  women.  I 
turn  the  business  over  to  you  and  your  lieutenants.  Do  it 
thoroughly,  and  when  you  need  help  draw  upon  me  and  keep 
drawing."  In  the  next  three  months  Father  Monogue  drew 
upon  him  for  $150,000,  and  every  draft  was  honored  on  sight, 
and  the  old  Irish  lady  saw,  besides,  a  church  grow  out  of  the 
embers  of  the  old  one,  and  it  was  larger  and  more  beautiful 
than  the  one  that  had  been  destroyed. 

After  Mr.  Mackay  made  his  first  little  fortune,  he  lost 
S300,000  in  an  Idaho  mine.  No  one  knew  it  but  himself,  but 
he  told  me  long  after  that  he  lost  that  money  just  when  he 
could  not  afford  to  do  so,  and,  while  he  was  counted  rich,  as 
riches  were  rated  then,  he  was  struggling  under  a  heavy  load. 
His  firm  was  trying  to  get  control  of  a  mine  that  Mr.  Sharon 
wanted  the  control  of,  and  one  day  they  clashed  in  the  branch 
California  bank  of  which  Mr.  Sharon  was  manager.  Sharon 
was  a  small  man,  and  all  the  last  years  of  his  life  in  delicate 
health.     But  he  was  hot  tempered,  and  when  angrv  did  not 


162  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

care  what  he  said.  On  this  occasion  he  was  standing  behind 
the  rail  which  shut  off  the  public,  and  Mr.  Mackay  stood  out- 
side. The  contrast  between  the  men  was  most  marked ;  Sharon 
was  small,  pale  and  frail,  Mackay  in  the  flush  of  perfect  man- 
hood, erect,  compact,  alert  and  with  the  easy  bearing  of  a  wary 
tiger  in  captivity.  The  dispute  grew  sharper  and  sharper 
until  at  last  Sharon  told  Mackay  that  if  he  did  not  go  slow  he 
would  make  him  pack  his  blankets  out  of  Virginia  City.  Mac- 
kay flushed  red,  his  hands  opening  and  shutting  for  an  instant 
and  then  he  controlled  himself  and  in  a  husky  voice  and  with 
the  stammer  which  always  came  to  him  when  angry,  said : 
"You  will?  Very  well,  I  will  still  have  a  mighty  sight  the  best 
of  you :  I  can  do  it." 

But  some  months  later,  as  Mackay  came  down  town  one 
morning  he  met  Billie  Wood,  one  of  the  bank  attorneys,  who 
asked  him  how  things  were  going  with  him.  "I  must  have 
$60,000  today  or  lose  stocks  which  in  three  months  would  make 
me  twenty  times  $60,000."  "Come  up  to  my  office,"  said 
Wood,  "and  tell  us  about  it."  They  went  to  the  office,  which 
was  over  the  bank,  where  Sunderland,  the  partner  of  Wood, 
was.  Wood  explained  to  Sunderland  the  situation  and  Sunder- 
land made  a  memorandum  of  the  stock,  and  saymg  "Wait  here 
a  few  minutes.  Mackay,"  went  out.  He  returned  within  ten 
minutes  with  a  note  and  a  check  on  the  bank  for  a  like  amount, 
and,  laying  the  two  papers  down,  said,  "Sign  the  note,  Mr. 
Mackay,  and  at  your  convenience  leave  the  stocks  in  the  bank." 

Mackay  glanced  at  the  check  and  saw  that  it  was  the  per- 
sonal check  of  Sharon. 

"Did  Sharon  do  this  ?"  asked  Mackay.  "Yes.  he  was  glad 
to  do  you  the  favor,"  replied  Sunderland  :  "and  let  me  give  you 
a  little  advice.  You  and  Sharon  are  both  too  hot-tempered 
to  quarrel  with  each  other.  When  you  both  feel  like  fighting 
at  the  «;ame  time,  separate  and  fight  outsiders." 

But  there  Avas  no  more  disposition  on  Mackay's  part  to 
fight  Sharon,  and  when  Sharon  later  was  in  real  trouble,  Mac- 
kav  was  as  a  brotlier  to  him. 

In  his  younger  days,  Mackay  had  much  repute  as  an 
athlete  and  boxer.    One  dav  when  the  Bonanza  was  at  its  best. 


JOHN.  W.  MACKAY.  163 

he  asked  R.  M.  Daggett  and  myself  to  go  down  in  the  mine 
with  him.  He  sent  the  message  by  Colonel  Obiston,  who  was 
then  superintendent  of  the  Gould  and  Curry — one  of  the  Bo- 
nanza firm's  mines.  He  said  to  Obiston :  "Those  fellows  up  in 
the  print  shop  think  I  get  my  money  easy.  I  want  to  show 
them." 

We  went  down  into  the  mine  and  began  to  explore  it.  But 
Daggett  was  fat  and  not  much  accustom.ed  to  exercise,  and 
fifteen  minutes  of  going  up  and  down  ladders  and  into  hot 
drifts  was  enough  for  him.  He  found  where  an  air  pipe  was 
supplying  the  mine  with  air,  sat  down  in  front  of  it  and 
declared  that  he  had  no  interest  in  examining  mines  that  he 
did  not  own  personally,  and  making  $7,000  reports  of  them  for 
nothing,  especially  for  people  who  kept  their  mines  as  hot  as 
that  was.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  a  hot  summer  day, 
after  an  hour's  visit  to  a  lower  level  of  the  Comstock,  on  ascend- 
ing, as  the  cage  emerges  from  the  shaft  the  summer  air  strikes 
one  like  a  plunge  into  a  cold  bath.  On  that  day,  after  going 
the  rounds,  we  were  hoisted  out  of  the  mine  and  went  to  the 
dressing  room  to  throw  off  the  mining  suits,  bathe  and  resume 
our  own  clothing.  When  Mackay  had  thrown  off  the  gray 
shirt  he  "put  up  his  props"  before  Daggett,  in  challenge  for  a 
boxing  match.    Daggett  cried  out.   "Wait  until  I  am  ready,  and 

"I  will  lay  on  for  Tusculum ; 
Do  thou  lay  on  for  Rome." 

But  a  moment  later  he  said :  "On  second  thought  I 
decline.  When  I  become  excited  I  strike  too  terrible  a  blow, 
and  you  are  poor  and  have  a  family  to  support." 

While  in  the  mine  that  day,  Daggett  asked  Mr.  Mackay 
how  much  money  he  had,  and  he  replied :  "I  have  twelve 
millions  of  dollars  now  and  believe  I  have  yet  twenty-five  years 
of  good  work  in  me."  He  died  almost  exactly  twentv-five 
years  later. 

But,  speaking  of  his  fondness  for  athletic  sports,  I  suspect 
he  was  more  responsible  for  the  career  of  Jim  Corbett  than  any- 
one else.    After  the  Bonanza  days,  Corbett  was  a  clerk  in  the 


164  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Nevada  bank  in  San  Francisco.  For  exercise  the  clerks  had 
fixed  a  httle  gymnasium  in  the  basement  of  the  bank.  Mackay 
often  went  down  to  watch  the  young  men  in  their  exercise.  He 
noticed  the  wonderful  quickness  and  precision  of  Corbett. 

Many  young  EngHshmen  who  went  to  San  Francisco  car- 
ried letters  to  Mr.  Mackay.  They  were  often  fresh  from 
Oxford  or  Cambridge,  and  their  talk  naturally  drifted  to  ath- 
letics. Then  Mackay  would  tell  them  that  there  was  a  boy  in 
the  bank  who  was  right  handy,  and  if  they  expressed  any 
desire  to  meet  him,  he  would  be  called  from  his  work  and  go  to 
the  basement,  and  it  was  with  grim  humor  that  Mackay  would 
watch  Corbett  "do  them  up." 

He  had  another  kind  of  humor.  One  day  the  boys  were 
down  in  the  Con  Virginia  office  fixing  up  a  slate  for  candi- 
dates for  city  offices.  While  thus  engaged,  Mr.  Mackay  swung 
around  in  his  chair  and  asked,  "What  are  you  going  to  do  for 
Jasen  Baldwin?"  (Baldwin  was  bright  and  shrewd  and  win- 
some, but  there  was  a  loose  pulley  somewhere  in  his  brain ;  he 
lacked  application  and  thrift.) 

Colonel  Osbiston  replied  that  Baldwin  wanted  to  run  for 
constable,  but  he  had  no  money.  Then  Mackay  said :  "Send 
him  down  here.  I  will  give  him  $500.  If  we  do  not  get  him 
an  ofifice  we  will  have  to  fix  a  place  for  him  and  he  is  not  a 
first-class  worker." 

Osbiston  soon  found  him  and  said:  "Baldwin,  whv  do 
you  not  run  for  constable?" 

"Because  I  have  not  a  cent  to  treat  the  boys,"  was  the 
reply. 

"How  much  do  you  need?"  asked  Osbiston. 

"I  need  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,"  said  Baldwin. 

"Well,"  said  Osbiston,  "go  down  and  Mr.  Mackay  will 
give  it  to  you." 

"Yes,  he  will :  he  will  fire  me  out  of  the  of^ce."  said 
Baldwin. 

"No.  it  will  be  all  right,  I  know."  said  Osbiston. 

Baldwin  thought  it  over  and  then  went  down,  walked  up 
to  the  rail  and  said  to  the  secretarv :     "\M11  vou  inform  ^Fr. 


JOHN.   W.  MACKAY.  165 

]\Iackay  that  Mr.  Baldwin  is  here  and  would  like  a  brief  inter- 
view?" 

He  was  shown  in  and  said :  "Mr.  Mackay,  I  want  to  bor- 
row two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars." 

"You  want  to  borrow  it?  What  is  your  security?"  asked 
Mr.  Mackay. 

"The  security  is  a  little  thin,  but  there  is  no  end  of  it," 
said  Baldwin. 

"You  would  give  your  note,  would  you  not?"  asked  the 
Bonanza  king. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Baldwin. 

Mr.  Mackay  turned  to  his  desk,  made  out  a  note,  filled  in 
a  check  and  pushing  both  papers  across  to  Baldwin,  said : 
"Sign  the  note,  Baldwin,  and  there  is  your  money." 

Baldwin  picked  up  a  pen  and  signed  the  note,  when  Mac- 
kay said,  "Had  you  not  better  read  that  note  before  you 
sign  it?" 

Baldwin  held  it  up  and  read  aloud :  "On  demand,  for 
value  received,  I  promise  to  pay  to  the  order  of  John  W. 
Mackay  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  with  interest  at  the  rate 
of  five  per  cent  per  day  until  paid."  Dropping  the  paper,  he 
turned  to  Mackay  and  said:  "Mr.  Mackay,  make  it  five  hun- 
dred dollars,  and  put  the  interest  at  10  per  cent  per  minute!" 

In  Bonanza  days  the  men  were  paid  in  coin.  A  window 
was  opened  in  the  secretary's  office.  Before  it  was  a  table  on 
which  there  were  several  tills,  such  as  are  used  in  banks,  and 
filled  with  twenty-dollar  pieces,  twenty  in  each  column,  making 
$400  as  in  all  western  banks,  and  a  great  heap  of  silver  coins 
in  the  center  of  the  table.  As  each  miner  came  to  the  window 
and  gave  his  name,  a  clerk  would  name  the  amount  due  him, 
and  another  clerk  would  pay  in  gold  and  silver. 

One  pay  day,  when  this  was  going  on,  Mr.  Mackay  was 
sitting  inside  the  rail  in  conversation  with  a  San  Francisco 
gentleman  who  had  expressed  a  desire  to  see  how  the  men 
were  paid  off". 

Looking  up,  Mr.  Mackay  saw  an  old  Irish  ladv  bending* 
over  the  rail.  He  arose,  went  to  her  and  heard  her  begin  to 
say,  "O  Mr.  Mackay,  we  are  very  poor — "  tlien  he  broke  awav. 


166  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

wdnt  to  the  table,  picked  up  three  of  the  $400  rolls,  returned 
and  said  low  to  her,  "Hold  up  your  apron."  When  she  did,  he 
dropped  the  money  into  it  and  said,  "Go  right  away  now, 
please.     I  am  very  busy." 

When  the  great  actor,  Adams,  returned,  dying,  from  Aus- 
tralia to  San  Francisco,  he  started  out  and  went  from  theatre 
to  theatre,  trying  to  secure  an  engagement.  But  every  man- 
ager saw  how  feeble  he  was,  that  he  could  not  bear  up  under 
the  strain  of  a  single  play,  and  put  him  off  with  one  or  another 
excuse.  He  returned  to  his  room  exhausted  and  almost  broken- 
hearted. This  was  long  before  bonanza  days  and  before  any 
of  the  Bonanza  firm  was  rich.  Adams  had  been  obliged  to 
take  to  his  bed  immediately  on  reaching  his  room.  As  he  lay 
there  ill  almost  unto  death  and  in  despair,  suddenly,  without  a 
knock,  the  door  opened  and  Mr.  Mackay  entered  softly.  He 
greeted  Adams  cordially,  talked  hopefully  to  him,  telling  him 
that  he  knew  that  in  a  few  days  he  would  be  his  old  self  again, 
keeping  up  the  talk  for  several  minutes,  when,  rising,  said 
he  must  go,  but  added :  "Adams,  you  do  not  seem  to  be  lying 
comfortably,"  and  bending  over  him  put  one  arm  under  his 
shoulders,  raised  him  up,  and,  with  the  other  hand,  rearranged 
his  pillows,  then,  laying  him  down,  said  he  would  see  him  again 
very  soon  and  left  the  room.  A  little  later,  the  colored  man 
who  was  waiting  on  Adams  asked  to  help  him  to  a  near-by 
lounge,  that  he  might  make  his  bed  for  the  night.  This  was 
done,  but  when  he  turned  the  pillows  back  he  said :  "Why, 
Mr.  Adams,  here's  a  letter."  Adams  opened  it  and  read 
the  following : 

"]\Iy  Dear  Adams :  I  have  long  owed  you  a  great  debt 
for  the  pleasure  you  have  given  me  by  your  fine  performances. 
I  am  sure  you  will  not  be  offended  if  I  begin  to  pay  you  in 
installments,  of  which  I  enclose  the  first  one. 

"Sincerely  vour  friend, 

'  "J.  W.  Mackay." 

With  the  letter  was  a  check  for  $2,000,  and  it  was  never 
known  until  McCullough,  the  actor,  told  it  at  a  banquet  in  New 
York.     And  he  added,  the  tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks 


JOHN.  W.   MACKAY.  167 

as  he  spoke  :  "We  found  the  letter  under  Adams'  pihow  when. 
a  few  weeks  later,  he  died." 

The  hardest  trial  that  Mr.  Mackay  ever  passed  through 
in  the  business  world,  the  one  that  most  clearly  revealed  the 
tenacity  of  the  man  and  made  clearest  his  integrity  of  purpose, 
came  to  him  after  he  thought  his  fortune  was  secure. 

When  the  founding  of  the  Nevada  Bank  was  being  con- 
sidered, Mr.  Mackay  had  said,  "Go  ahead  if  you  think  best, 
but  do  not  bother  me  with  the  business ;  that  is  altogether  out 
of  my  line,  unless  you  get  to  advancing  money  on  mining 
stocks,  then  I  shall  want  to  know  what  you  are  doing.  The 
bank  was  started,  also  the  branch  bank  in  Virginia  City.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  in  the  winter  and  spring  of  1884  or 
1885.  a  series  of  great  rains  and  floods  swept  the  whole  south- 
ern country  from  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles  clear  across 
the  country  to  Galveston.  The  Southern  Pacific  railroad  was 
the  greatest  sufferer  from  the  storms.  One  morning  in  San 
Francisco  Mr.  Flood,  president  of  the  Nevada  Bank,  met  Mr. 
Charles  Crocker.  They  stopped  on  the  sidewalk,  but  after  a 
moment  Flood  said  to  Crocker :  "You  seem  to  be  cast  down 
this  morning.     Anything  special  the  matter?" 

Crocker  replied:  "I  am  about  ready  to  give  up."  Then 
he  explained  that  the  road  was  washed  out  in  a  hundred  places ; 
that  cars  with  costly  merchandise  were  strung  all  the  way  from 
San  Francisco  to  El  Paso,  and  the  amount  of  money  needed 
to  put  the  road  in  repair  was  appalling.  "How  much  money 
is  needed?"  asked  Flood.  "I  am  afraid  to  say,"  was  Crocker's 
reply. 

"The  best  way  to  meet  trouble  is  to  look  it  squarely  in  the 
face."  said  Flood.     "Tell  me  how  much  money  you  require." 

Crocker  answered :  "I  think  $5,000,000."  "Well,"  said 
Flood,  "make  out  a  note  and  have  Governor  Stanford  sign  it 
with  you,  and  the  bank  will  cash  it." 

But  the  cashier  of  the  bank,  a  young  man,  was  furious 
about  it.  He  declared  that  no  bank  had  any  right  to  loan 
v$5, 000,000  on  any  two  men's  signatures,  no  matter  whom 
they  might  be. 

Some  months  later,  Mr.  Flood  was  confined  bv  illness  to 


168  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

his  home  in  San  Mateo,  and  tlie  bank  was  left  in  charge  of 
this  same  cashier. 

About  the  same  time,  unconscious  of  any  troul)le.  ]\Iackay 
sailed  for  Paris  by  London,  to  visit  his  family.  Arriving  in 
London  he  called  at  the  bank  which  was  the  London  corre- 
spondent of  the  Nevada  Bank.  He  was  shown  into  the  pres- 
ident's room  and  after  a  few  minutes'  conversation,  the  pres- 
ident said :  "You  are  doing  a  heavy  business  in  your  San 
Francisco  bank,  are  you  not?" 

"Nothing  unusual  that  I  know  of,"  was  the  reply,  "'^^'hat 
leads  vou  to  such  a  conclusion?" 

"Why,"  said  the  president,  "your  bank's  account  is  over- 
drawn with  us  more  than  £100.000." 

Mackay  turned  over  private  securities  which  he  was  hold- 
ing in  London,  settled  the  overdraft,  wired  his  wife  that  he  was 
obliged  to  return  to  America,  took  the  next  steamer  and  hurried 
to  San  Francisco.  A  man  had  tried  to  corner  the  wheat  mar- 
ket and  had  hypnotized  this  same  cashier,  and  when  Mr.  Mac- 
kay reached  San  Francisco,  he  found  that  he  had  advanced 
this  wheat  cornerer  more  than  $30,000,000.  The  ships  car- 
rying the  grain  were  strung  all  the  way  from  Port  Costa  to 
Liverpool,  and  wheat  was  falling  in  price.  He  said  he  did  not 
know  in  that  hour  whether  one  cent  of  his  fortune  would  be 
left  or  not.  or  whether  he  would  not  also  be  in  debt. 

Sometime  before  Mr.  Fair  had  withdrawn  from  the  bank. 
])ut  that  morning  he  entered  the  bank.  Avalked  up  to  Mr.  Mac- 
kay. and  laying  his  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  said :  "I  hear 
you  are  in  some  trouble.  John.  I  sold  a  little  railroad  yester- 
rlay.  and  have  $3,000,000  over  in  another  bank.  If  it  will  do 
you  any  good,  you  are  welcome  to  it." 

They  worked  out,  but  Flood  and  Mackay  lost  $12,000,000. 

Then  Mr.  Mackay  said  to  Flood :  "Don't  be  cast  down. 
We  have  lost  a  little  money,  but  have  a  little  left  and  we  will 
£ret  along."  But  Mr.  Flood  never  rallied  from  it,  and  died  a 
few  months  later. 

In  face  and  hand  and  foot.  Mackay  showed  that  he  canie 
of  gentle  stock ;  in  natural  bearing,  he  was  iniperious  as  a 
Csesar,  with  the  walk  of  a  trained  soldier,  but  it  was  onlv  in  his 


JOHN.  W.  MACKAY.  169 

bearing.  As  he  mingled  with  men,  there  was  not  one  look 
or  word  or  gesture  that  was  not  winsome,  unless  some  base 
nature  crossed  him. 

Most  men  can  bear  misfortune.  To  toil  and  to  be  disap- 
pointed is  so  often  the  fate  of  men  that  it  may  be  called  the 
rule. 

But  when  the  wealth  of  a  kingdom  comes  suddenly  to  a 
man,  then  the  manhood  of  the  man  is  tried;  then  if  aught  of 
vanity  or  false  pride  or  love  of  power  or  display  attaches  to 
him  it  comes  at  once  to  the  surface,  and  its  manifestation  is  a 
trial  to  witness. 

Mr.  Mackay  in  youth  started  out  with  a  fixed  belief  in  the 
omnipotence  of  labor.  He  believed  it  was  capital  enough  for 
any  healthy  man  in  this  country.  By  nature  he  was  impetu- 
ous, quick  of  temper,  resolute,  never  asking  odds,  always  ag- 
gressive, always  borne  up  with  a  belief  that  he  could  fight  his 
way  through,  trusting  only  in  his  own  brain  and  the  physical 
equipment  which  nature  had  given  him. 

After  years  of  incessant  labor,  and  all  the  hardships  which 
are  inseparable  from  a  miner's  life,  John  W.  Mackay  awakened 
one  morning  to  find  himself  twenty  times  a  millionaire. 

He  knew  that  mankind  burned  incense  to  success.  He 
knew  that  if  desired  all  honors  in  the  political  world  were  open 
to  him ;  that  all  social  triumphs  might  be  his ;  but  the  thought 
that  controlled  him  was  that  wealth  in  this  world  is  a  trust; 
that  the  greater  the  wealth,  the  more  exacting  is  the  obligation 
to  use  it  righteously. 

His  former  work  had  made  him  an  "industrial  king."  He 
had  laid  his  hands  upon  the  desert  mountains  of  Nevada  and 
wrested  from  them  vast  treasures.  His  fortune  was  a  crea- 
tion; so  much  added  to  the  wealth  of  the  world.  Labor  had 
been  his  trust  always ;  he  continued  to  work.  He  next  laid 
his  hand  upon  the  sea  and  stretched  a  cable  beneath  its  storms 
and  its  surges,  a  living  wire,  a  right  arm  for  commerce,  a 
link  in  the  chain  of  peace.  He  supplemented  this  with  a 
telegraph  service  that  controlled  a  continent;  could  his  life 
have  been  spared  two  years  more,  he  would  have  completed  a 
"girdle  round  about  the  earth"   which  would  have  realized 


170  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Puck's  dream.     He  wore  the  harness  of  toil  until  the  moment 
that  his  final  call  came. 

Though  brave  enough  to  have  led  McDonald's  charge  at 
^^'agram  with  unblanched  face,  he  was  sensitive  as  a  woman ; 
he  loved  passionately  music  and  works  of  real  art;  though 
through  all  his  youth  his  days  were  absorbed  in  a  rough  and 
tumble  fight  with  and  against  an  iron  fortune,  he  was  perfectlv 
at  home  in  the  society  of  great  men  and  accomplished  women — 
the  unpretentious  manhood  of  the  man  shone  out  everywhere. 

Gifted  pens  have  told  of  his  achievements,  but  none  have 
or  can  give  any  clear  idea  of  the  man  as  he  was;  the  alert 
brain,  the  warm  heart,  the  superb  character  that  he  bore :  the 
courage  that  no  misfortune  could  daunt ;  the  soul  so  high  that 
there  was  never  room  for  one  trace  of  false  pride. 

His  whole  life  was  lined  with  unostentatious  charities ;  if 
every  generous  act  of  his  life  could  be  converted  into  a  flower 
they  Avould  garland  the  mausoleum  where  he  sleeps  with  a 
glory  never  seen  around  a  death  couch  before;  if  his  impulses 
in  life  could  have  taken  material  form  they  would  have  fallen 
in  benedictions  upon  every  poor  man's  home,  they  would 
have  steadied  the  hands  of  every  high  officer  of  our  govern- 
ment, for  love  of  his  adopted  country  and  solicitude  for  its  wel- 
fare and  glory  were  with  him  grand  passions. 

Intense  and  strong  as  he  was.  after  all  his  highest  attri- 
bute was  his  affection  for  those  he  loved.  He  was  never  quite 
himself  after  the  death  by  accident  of  his  eldest  son.  As  one 
after  another  of  his  old  friends  fell  asleep,  he  grieved  for  them 
as  for  brothers  dead. 

But  he  kept  right  on  with  his  duties.  He  was  always 
read}'  if  summoned  to  his  final  account  to  say  to  the  judgment 
angel,  "I  began  with  nothing.  I  gained  many  millions,  but  I 
kept  my  hands  clean;  look  at  them  in  this  clearer  light  and  see 
if  they  carry  one  stain." 

The  world  has  never  seen  a  manlier  man  than  John  W. 
]\Iackay.  If  good  deeds  count  for  so  much  as  a  feather,  if 
they  took  form  beyond  this  life  and  became  his  pillow,  his 
final  couch  is  softer  than  down,  and  his  last  sleep  is  curtained 
in  everlasting  peace. 


CLARENCE  KING. 

WHEN  I  met  Clarence  King,  he  was  most  considerate, 
kind  and  companionable.  There  was  not  a  trace  of 
self-consciousness  about  him,  but  merely  a  genial 
recognition  of  a  fellowman — the  air  of  one  who  as  men 
measure  men — knowing  that  he  was  learned  and  gifted,  never 
forgot  that  real  men  are  men,  and  that  brilliant  accomplish- 
ments in  this  world  are  at  best  but  a  mastering  of  the  alpha- 
bet of  real  learning — that  the  exhaustless  fields  are  beyond. 
There  was  a  courtesy  and  refinement  about  Mr.  King  which  to 
me  seemed  inborn,  and  which  I  never  fully  understood  until  I 
learned  that  when  a  baby  of  a  year  old  his  father  died  and  that 
thereafter  his  gifted  mother  devoted  her  life  to  her  boy's  edu- 
cation and  training.  When  I  read  that,  I  said  to  myself,  "Why, 
of  course  it  was  the  character  of  his  mother  shining  out 
through  the  son." 

He  was  the  same  in  a  mining  camp,  in  the  private  office 
of  hard-headed  financiers  or  at  a  reunion  of  college  boys.  His 
audience  was  always  puzzled  to  quite  analyze  him. 

The  truth  was  that  he  was  a  child  of  nature;  the  great 
mountains  were  more  real  company  for  him  than  either  men  or 
men-made  books,  though  he  was  a  scholar  and  loved  his  friends 
exceedingly. 

He  was  drawn  from  his  New  England  home  by  reading  a 
description  of  Mount  Shasta,  and  never  rested  until  he  had 
found  that  majestic  mountain  and  climbed  it.  Then  at  its 
base  he  found  a  stream  of  water  which  by  its  color  he  believed 
had  come  from  a  glacier,  and  when  assured  by  the  highest 
geological  authority  that  there  were  no  glaciers  on  Shasta,  he 
still  had  his  convictions,  and  after  years  of  exploration  he 
found  the  glaciers  on  the  sullen  mountain's  flank.  He  had  a 
memory  that  never  left  him  in  the  lurch ;  he  was  so  brave  that 
he  could  perform  feats  that  other  men  shuddered  even  to  con- 
template ;  he  kept  his  heart  always  open  to  every  cry  for  help ; 
his  knowledge  was  most  profound,  but  to   the  last  he   was 


172  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

simple-hearted  and  eager  to  learn,  and  every  phenomenon  of 
nature  was.  when  he  found  it,  a  joy  to  him.  I  can  imagine  him 
and  John  Aluir  walking  side  by  side  all  day  over  Yosemite 
trails  and  hardly  speaking,  and  then  at  night  see  them  enthu- 
siastic over  the  great  day  they  had  enjoyed. 

He  grew  to  be  a  great  geologist  on  the  west  coast  and  was 
more  and  more  absorbed  in  the  study  up  to  the  day  of  his 
death.  We  say  grew  to  be.  because  that  exactly  expresses  the 
fact.  In  a  suit  between  two  warring  mining  companies  in 
Eureka,  Nevada,  he  gave  his  expert  testimony.  In  another 
case  some  years  later,  where  the  same  formation  was  a  ques- 
tion Mr.  King  was  called  upon  again  and  reversed  his  previous 
opinions.  When  his  former  testimony  was  shown  him  and  he 
was  asked  to  explain  the  discrepancies  between  his  statements, 
he  frankly  admitted  that  his  first  testimony  was  delivered  upon 
superficial  knowledge,  stating  why  he  was  deceived  at  first  and 
how  a  new  light  had  come  to  him. 

The  air  was  filled  with  whispers  of  combines  to  defraud, 
bribery,  double-dealing,  perjury  and  all  the  sinister  accompani- 
ments ;  but  there  was  not  a  thought  on  either  side  that  ex- 
pressed would  have  cast  so  much  as  a  shadow  on  the  stainless 
shield  of  Clarence  King's  integrity.  He  explored  almost  every 
defile,  climbed  to  the  summit  of  every  western  mountain 
and  lifted  the  veil  from  every  desert  of  the  west,  but  we  feel 
sure  that  only  his  over-mastering  love  of  nature  held  him  up  to 
the  work,  for  he  was  naturally  refined  and  loved  all  refine- 
ments ;  he  loved  the  society  of  the  gifted,  accomplished  and 
learned :  everything  that  was  exquisite  in  art  and  literature :  he 
loved,  too.  the  comforts  that  come  of  richly  furnished  houses, 
delicate  food,  soft  beds,  rare  books  and  pictures,  trained 
service ;  and  the  highest  society  held  him  as  foremost  guest. 

But  with  all  these,  I  suspect  he  would  periodically  have 
broken  away — he  would  have  followed  a  cloud  to  mark  the 
changes  of  color  that  the  sunbeams  might  paint  upon  it,  or 
would  have  followed  the  trail  to  some  new  mountain  that  he 
had  news  of,  or  would  have  run  away  to  the  seashore  to 
interpret  the  voices  of  the  waves  as  they  came  rolling  in  from 
far-off  lands. 


CLARENCE  KING.  173 

"The  call  of  the  wild"  was  ever  ringing  in  his  soul.  He 
climbed  Lassen's  Peak  one  day  when  the  fog  eight  thousand 
feet  deep  had  laid  its  mantle  on  the  hills  of  Lassen,  Shasta  and 
Siskiyou  counties,  and  all  the  Pitt  River  valley.  It  was  just 
after  the  first  fall  of  snow  in  the  early  winter,  and  seen  that 
way  a  man's  first  impulse  is  to  doff  his  hat  as  though  in  the 
presence  of  Deity. 

When  King  reached  the  crest  of  Lassen's  Peak — which  is 
a  sovereign  mountain  itself — there,  eighty  miles  away,  the  six 
thousand  feet  above  the  bank  of  fog,  stood  Shasta,  its  crest 
turned  to  purple  and  gold  under  the  sunbeams,  its  sides  white 
under  the  new  fallen  snow,  and  he  cried  out :  "What  would 
Ruskin  say  could  he  see  this?" 

Ruskin  gave  the  world  some  glorified  pictures  of  the  Alps, 
but  never  had  seen  an  inspiration  such  as  that  would  have 
given  him. 

But  we  are  not  sure  that  King  would  not  have  achieved 
more  fame  had  he  chosen  a  purely  literary  career.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  achieved  immortality  in  weaving  into  simple  stories, 
colorless  without,  the  pictures  of  Scotland's  mountains  and  the 
portrayals  of  Scotland's  men  and  women,  their  looks  and  their 
deeds. 

Wdiat  might  not  Mr.  King  have  achieved  had  he  chosen  to 
portray  the  poetical  side  of  the  great  west  of  America  or  of 
the  fairest  of  foreign  lands ! 

Under  his  mother's  care  he  wrote  beautifully  when  but 
fifteen  years  of  age.  \\' hat  might  he  not  have  done  with  his  later 
knowledge  and  experience  in  the  clearer  light  that  had  come 
to  him  ?  For  he  knew  how  the  mountains  had  been  framed ; 
how  the  glaciers  were  started  in  their  flow ;  the  ages  of  the 
rocks;  and  had  translated  their  heiroglyphics  into  written 
languages.  However  distracted  he  may  have  been  in  other 
directions,  he  was  always  in  accord  with  nature.  Then  his 
taste  was  so  perfect,  his  wit  so  exquisite,  his  power  of  descrip- 
tion so  unequaled ;  his  use  of  language  so  inimitable — for  he 
never  lacked  the  exact  word  needed — his  observation  so  all- 
embracing  that  he  never  missed  a  detail — like  a  woman  who  at 
a  glance  can  take  in  every  detail  of  a  sister  woman's  attire  as 


174  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

they  pass  on  the  street — what  might  he  not  have  produced  in 
a  hterary  way  ? 

Then  he  could  master  a  strange  tongue  in  a  month  and 
so  all  literature  would  have  been  at  his  command  in  its  original 
form  and  expression. 

And  he  could  in  a  moment  ingratiate  himself  into  any 
company,  a  band  of  cowboys  in  the  west  or  an  array  of  artists 
or  scientists  or  writers  in  London  or  Paris,  or  had  he  been 
captured  by  cannibals,  they  would  not  have  eaten  him,  but 
would  have  adopted  him  and  within  a  week  would  have  ten- 
dered him  his  choice  of  their  prettiest  dusky  maidens  for  a  wife. 

And  still,  after  a  hard  day's  work,  or  an  evening  spent 
with  artists,  brilliant  men  and  women,  to  rest  himself  so  that 
he  might  sleep,  he  was  prone  to  solve  some  abstruse  problem 
in  mathematics  or  clear  up  from  his  field  notes  some  doubts 
as  to  rock  formations. 

The  service  he  performed  for  his  country  in  his  reports 
of  his  studies  of  the  great  west,  are  invaluable  and  the  work 
performed  in  getting-  together  his  data  was  something  pro- 
digious. 

Still  as  a  simple  man  was  he  greatest,  the  every-day  man. 
manly  everywhere,  manly  without  a  shade  of  false  pride  in 
his  nature ;  the  man  at  home  everywhere,  the  man  who  held 
all  other  honest  men  as  good  as  himself;  one  who  would  have 
taken  a  friend  from  the  gutter  and  nursed  him  back  to  health 
and  hope,  but  would  not  have  taken  the  hand  of  a  Caesar  had 
that  Caesar  been  unworthy — the  centuries  may  not  produce  his 
fellow,  so  versatile  was  he,  so  all-encompassing  was  his  mind, 
so  royal  his  heart,  so  exalted  his  character. 

Those  who  knew  him  best  loved  him  most,  and  when  he 
died,  beyond  the  passionate  grief  that  followed  him  to  the 
grave,  was  a  vast  regret  that  he  had  never  given  full  expres- 
sion to  the  real  height  and  depth  of  his  nature,  and  that  the 
world  would  never  realize  how  altogether  great  and  splendid 
a  man  he  was,  or  how  much  the  world  lost  when  he  died. 


JUDGE  B.  C.  WHITMAN. 

SO  FAR  as  I  could  ever  see,  there  was  not  one  flaw  in  the 
character  of  Judge  Whitman.  A  gentleman,  a  gentle- 
man always :  educated,  refined,  so  exalted  in  his  integrity 
that  it  was  never  questioned ;  the  most  devoted  father  and  hus- 
band; the  most  considerate  of  the  faults  of  others;  mingling 
with  all  that  throng  on  the  Comstock  in  the  first  wild  days  in 
perfect  accord,  and  still  making  it  absolutely  clear  that  he  had 
nothing  in  common  with  anything  coarse  or  rude  or  unclean, 
he  was  to  men  what  the  Gulf  stream  is  to  the  common  waters 
of  the  sea,  moving  amid  it  with  a  current  distinctly  its  own, 
fed  by  a  different  fountain,  bound  on  a  separate  voyage,  utterly 
unlike  in  temperature,  and  pursuing  a  different  course. 

He  was  always  genial  and  gentle;  he  loved  his  friends, 
loved  to  associate  with  his  fellow  men;  he  had  an  exquisite 
sense  of  humor,  and  still  he  always  gave  me  the  impression 
that  he  would  have  been  perfectly  at  home  in  some  great  insti- 
tution where  only  high  thoughts  were  permitted,  only  classic 
language  spoken. 

He  practiced  law  many  years  in  Virginia  City  in  those 
years  when  gladiators  in  the  profession  met  in  the  arena  and 
fought  to  the  limit,  and  held  his  own  there. 

No  spoken  nor  mental  reproaches  ever  followed  Judge 
Whitman  out  of  court.  The  thought  was :  "Whether  right  or 
wrong,  he  thinks  he  is  right." 

When  elected  to  the  supreme  bench,  and  he  took  his  seat, 
it  seemed  to  those  who  watched  as  though  the  seat  had  been 
long  waiting  for  him,  so  natural  was  it  to  think  of  him  as  a 
judge. 

I  do  not  think  he  was  as  profound  a  lawyer  as  Judge 
Mesick,  or  C.  J.  Hellyer  or  General  Charles  H.  Williams,  but 
he  was  great  enough  to  have  the  perfect  confidence  of  the 
whole  bar,  not  only  in  his  absolute  integrity,  but  in  his  knowl- 
edge and  his  utter  absence  of  prejudice. 

Outside  of  his  profession  he  was  a  most  valued  citizen. 


176  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

He  was  a  massive  man  physically  and  intellectually ;  he  had 
most  pronounced  opinions  on  all  subjects  relating  to  the  gov- 
ernment and  country;  he  could  express  them  without  offense 
and  in  a  way  to  influence  those  who  heard  him.  And  so  he 
mo\ed.  an  example  of  high  manhood  and  of  exalted  patriotism 
all  his  days. 

In  those  first  days  on  the  Comstock,  when  the  clouds  of 
the  dreadful  war  gathered  and  broke  in  their  fury,  the  bar  of 
Virginia  City  was  about  equally  divided  between  northern  and 
southern  men,  and  sectional  differences  between  them  were 
bitter  in  the  extreme. 

These  had  been  nursed  during  the  five  preceding  years  in 
California  after  the  Democratic  party  had  divided  and  the 
tattered  remnants  of  the  old  Whig  party  had  been  picked  up 
and  woven  into  the  Republican  fabric. 

This  had  been  greatly  intensified  by  the  death  of  Brod- 
erick  and  Ferguson  in  California ;  their  friends  declaring,  in 
their  sorrow  and  wrath,  that  they  had  been  slain  to  get  them  out 
of  the  way,  the  friends  of  Terry  and  Penn  Johnson  insisting 
that  both  had  acknowledged  the  code  and  that  they  were  fairly 
killed. 

For  many  months  the  dropping  of  a  match  would  have 
kindled  a  civil  war.  Among  these  contending  forces  Judge 
Whitman  moved  with  his  life-long  serenity,  and  though  as 
fixed  in  his  convictions  as  any  of  them,  and  as  perfectly  under- 
stood, his  presence  made  for  order  and  for  law,  not  only 
among  the  men  who  were  prominent,  but  among  their  respec- 
ti^'e  followers.  It  was  natural,  too,  for  to  have  assailed  him 
would  have  been  like  knocking  the  scales  from  the  hands  of 
Justice  or  bespattering  the  white  robes  of  Peace. 

The  influence  for  good  of  such  a  man  cannot  be  estimated. 
As  the  years  move  on  he  gains  in  his  influence,  and  it  is  more 
difficult  for  men  to  do  unmanly  things  when  they  meet  such 
a  man  every  day. 

When  Judge  Whitman  left  the  supreme  bench  the  Com- 
stock was  going  into  temporary  borasco,  and  he  removed  to 
San  Francisco  and  resumed  the  practice  of  law  there,  which 
he  pursued  for  a  few  years  until  one  evening  he  went  into  one 


JUDGE  B.  C.  WHITMAN.  177 

of  the  gentlemen's  clubs  in  the  city  and  feeling  drowsy  laid 
down  upon  a  lounge.  Soon  after  he  lost  consciousness  and  a 
little  later  died. 

It  is  a  welcome  memory  that  when  his  call  came  it  was 
without  pain  and  that  death  to  him  was  but  passing  from  a 
troubled  sleep  into  the  sleep  of  everlasting  peace. 

In  life  his  was  as  nearly  a  perfect  character  as  I  ever  met. 

Men  can  live  calm  lives  in  a  cloister;  if  their  lives  are  ab- 
solutely devoted  to  the  service  of  God,  many  men  can  live 
blameless  lives ;  but  Judge  Whitman  assumed  all  a  man's  duties 
as  husband,  father,  citizen,  and  fought  for  a  place  and  name 
against  all  the  sharp  competitions  necessary  to  forge  out  un- 
aided his  way,  and  so  did  his  work  that  tliere  was  not  a  stain 
on  his  character,  not  a  reproach  attaching  to  his  high  soul  to 
the  last. 

He  was  the  highest  possible  type  of  man,  and  those  who 
revered  him  most  were  those  who  understood  him  best;  those 
who  loved  him  best  were  those  who  had  been  closest  to  him  in 
their  relations. 

To  his  family  he  was  at  once  a  king  and  a  guardian  angel. 
He  was  in  the  sharp  contests  of  business,  and  every  night 
emerged  from  the  fiery  furnace  as  did  the  three — no  smell  of 
fire  upon  him. 


JAMES  G.  FAIR. 

ABOUT  five  feet  eight  inches  in  height,  weighing,  say 
210  pounds,  massive  every  way;  a  sovereign  head;  a 
splendid  face ;  a  soft  voice ;  a  winsome  personahty — a 
tiger  satisfied  in  captivity  and  inchned  to  purr,  and  seldom  ''to 
unsheath  from  his  cushioned  feet  his  curving  claws."  A  master 
mechanic  who  could  do  anything  in  iron  and  steel,  a  perfect 
judge  of  any  kind  of  machinery;  a  brain  in  which  everything 
was  reduced  to  perfect  order;  one  of  the  very  shrewdest  of 
financiers ;  a  mind  that  could  reason  from  cause  to  effect  with 
lightning-like  rapidity  and  perfect  certainty,  and  from  early 
childhood  more  interested  in  the  affairs  of  James  G.  Fair  than 
of  any  other  soul  on  earth.  From  childhood  he  knew,  what  so 
few  men  ever  learn,  the  exact  value  of  a  dollar,  and  was  strong- 
enough  when  his  fortune  climbed  into  the  millions,  never  to 
forget  the  unit  and  what  it  was  worth. 

Early  in  California  quartz  veins  had  the  greatest  attrac- 
tion for  him.  If  a  vein  assayed  $7  per  ton,  and  if  80  per  cent 
of  the  value  could  be  saved,  that  meant  $5.60.  If  that  could 
be  mined  and  reduced  for  $2  per  ton  there  would  be  $3.60 
saved,  and  one  hundred  tons  per  da}-  would  mean  a  saving  of 
$360,  and  that  would  be  newly-created  wealth.  If  85  per  cent 
could  be  extracted  and  the  cost  reduced  50  cents  per  ton.  then 
the  profit  could  be  $4.45  per  ton  or  $450  per  day.  How  to 
perfect  machinery  to  save  a  higher  percentage  from  the  assay 
value,  and  how  to  adjust  machinery  and  labor  to  reduce  the 
cost  of  working,  were  his  studies  for  years  in  the  Golden  State. 
From  it  one  can  readily  see  how  well  prepared  he  was  to  wres- 
tle with  the  problems  that  the  Comstock  presented.  I  believe  it 
is  fair  to  say  that  the  Wheeler  grinding  and  amalgamating 
pan  was  the  most  important  adjunct  in  the  working  of  Com- 
stock ores  in  the  first  twenty  years  in  which  those  ores  were 
worked.  Mr.  Fair  always  claimed  that  every  feature  of  the 
pan  was  his  original  idea. 

He  went  to  the  Comstock  as  a  machinist,  but  in  California 


JAMES  G.  FAIR.  179 

he  had  given  much  study  to  ore  presentations  and  in  a  brief 
time  he  understood  perfectly,  both  the  formation  of  the  great 
lode  and  its  peculiarities,  for  all  great  mines  have  habits  of 
their  own. 

When  the  mining  stock  board  was  established  in  San 
Francisco,  and  the  dealing  in  stocks  became  the  great  feature 
of  that  city,  no  one  understood  better  than  Mr.  Fair  its  possi- 
bilities. In  the  meantime  he  had  learned  to  know  John  W. 
Mackay  well  and  both  knew  Flood  and  O'Brien  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  a  combine  was  made.  The  San  Francisco  firm  had 
some  means  and  when  from  the  Comstock  word  was  sent  to 
buy  or  sell  stocks,  or  to  buy  on  a  margin  or  to  sell  short,  Flood 
responded,  and  a  good  deal  of  money  was  made.  They  soon 
became  a  factor ;  then  they  began  to  get  control  of  certain  of 
the  mines ;  they  made  one  diversion  and  lost  $300,000  in  a 
Silver  City,  Idaho,  mine,  and  thereafter  clung"  with  more  ten- 
acity to  the  great  vein  under  Mount  Davidson.  By  1870  they 
had  obtained  control  of  the  California  and  Con.  Virginia, 
Best  and  Belcher,  and  Gould  and  Curry,  all  adjoining.  Their 
hope  was  to  explore  the  old  workings  of  the  California  and 
Con.  Virginia,  believing  that  a  good  deal  of  money  could  be 
made  from  low-grade  ores  that  had  been  left  in  the  stopes,  as 
the  cost  of  reduction  and  transportation  had  been  much  re- 
duced. They  worked  with  but  indifferent  success  for  six 
months,  when  one  evening  Mr.  Fair  met  Captain  McKay,  who 
long  had  been  in  charge  of  the  Gould  and  Curry,  before  the 
Bonanza  firm  obtained  possession.  Captain  McKay  was  a  fine 
geologist  and  scholar  generally,  besides  being  a  perfect  miner. 

McKay  said  to  Fair :  "Why  do  you  not  go  to  the  bottom 
of  the  Gould  and  Curry  shaft  and  drift  north?  The  shaft  is 
1 ,200  feet  deep ;  a  tunnel  north  from  it  would  be  below  all  the 
workings  of  the  Best  and  Belcher,  the  Con.  Virginia  and  Cali- 
fornia :  it  would  be  in  virgin  ground,  and  if  there  are  any  deep 
ore  bodies  on  the  fissure,  the  outcrop  of  which  was  the  surface 
ore  bodv  of  the  Mexican  and  Ophir,  by  tiie  dip  of  the  vein 
you  ought  to  strike  them." 

"T  don't  think  there  is  anything  in  it,"  was  Uncle  Jimmie's 
reply,  but  that  night  three  shifts  of  men  were  set  to  work  at 


180  AS  I  REMEAIBER  THEM. 

the  bottom  of  the  Curry  shaft,  drifting  north.  It  was  all 
blasting  rock;  when  broken  the  debris  had  to  be  run  back 
to  the  Curry  shaft,  hoisted  1,200  feet  and  run  out  on  the 
dump.  It  required  a  good  deal  of  nerve  and  a  great  deal 
of  money,  but  it  was  pushed  out  through  the  north  end 
of  the  Curry.  150  feet,  through  the  Best  and  Belcher  750 
feet  and  150  feet  into  the  south  end  of  the  Con.  Virginia, 
when  the  great  bonanza  was  struck  about  30  feet  below  its 
apex.  Had  the  shaft  been  only  1,100  instead  of  1,200  feet 
deep,  the  drift  would  have  passed  over  it  and  it  might  have 
remained  undiscovered  still. 

\Mien  I  left  Virginia  City  it  had  yielded  $119,000,000  and 
had  paid  in  dividends  $67,000,000.  Of  course  Uncle  Jimmie 
made  some  millions  from  it,  but  it  did  not  change  him,  rather 
it  made  him  as  the  boys  on  the  Comstock  said,  more  so.  The 
anecdotes  of  him  were  numberless.  AAHien  the  big  bonanza  was 
fully  opened  it  was  400  feet  wide  in  places  and  was  laid  off  in 
great  galleries  by  wide  drifts  like  the  streets  of  a  city. 

It  was  intensely  hot,  and  so  the  timbers — it  required 
3,000,000  feet  per  month  for  several  years — became  as  dry  as 
tinder.  A  fire  started  in  those  depths  would  have  made  a 
volcano  in  an  hour. 

Hence  the  strictest  rules  were  enforced  against  every- 
thing that  might  start  a  fire.  One  rule  forbade  smoking.  Uncle 
Jimmie  went  down  in  the  mine  one  day,  and  going  to  one  of 
the  stopes  thought  he  detected  the  odor  of  tobacco  smoke.  He 
said  nothing,  but  went  to  other  portions  of  the  mine  and  in 
half  an  hour  returned.  Sinking  down  on  the  floor  of  the  drift 
with  a  deep  sigh  he  said,  'T  am  surely  growing  old,  a  little  run 
through  the  mine  tires  me  more  than  a  day's  work  used  to.  I 
think  if  I  had  a  few  puffs  of  a  pipe  it  would  refresh  me 
greatly."  A  dozen  pipes  were  presented  in  a  moment.  Uncle 
Jimmie  took  one,  puffed  away  for  a  moment,  then  with  many 
thanks  handed  it  back,  saying  that  it  had  greatly  revived  him. 
and  went  to  the  surface. 

The  next  day,  going  down  Taylor  street  toward  the  mine, 
he  met  the  whole  shift  of  men  going  up  the  hill.  "AMiy.  how 
is  this?"  said  he:  "I  thought  this  was  your  shift." 


JAMES  G.  FAIR.  181 

One  of  them  replied.  "We  have  been  laid  off."  "Laid 
off?"  said  Fair.  "That  is  John  (Mackay).  I  never  get  a 
crew  of  men  that  just  suit  me,  that  John  doesn't  discharge 
them."  And  with  a  sigh  he  passed  on.  But  the  miners  knew 
better  and  called  him  names  as  they  climbed  the  hill. 

One  day  a  gentleman  from  Boston  with  his  wife  and  young 
lady  daughter  called  at  the  Con.  Virginia  office  and  the  man 
asked  if  it  was  possible  to  visit  the  lower  levels  of  the  mine.  The 
clerk  called  down  to  the  lower  shaft  house,  telling  what  was 
w^anted.  The.  reply  came  back  to  send  the  strangers  down 
there  at  once.  They  put  on  the  needed  clothes  and  were  shown 
to  the  cage.  The  man  at  the  engine  was  told  to  stop  at  16. 
When  the  party  left  the  cage  a  miner  received  them  and  for 
an  hour  or  more  showed  them  'round,  explaining  what  w^as 
ore,  what  country  rock,  how  ore  was  mined ;  how  big  mines 
w^ere  timbered,  all  the  time  talking  wisely  of  ore  formations, 
the  working  and  ventilation  and  drainage  of  mines  ;•  the  pro- 
visions made  for  escape  in  case  of  a  cave  or  a  fire  or  other 
accident. 

The  party  w^as  charmed  with  the  sturdy  miner  who 
seemed  so  well  informed  and  so  affable.  When  they  reached 
the  cage  and  were  about  to  be  hoisted  from  the  depth,  the 
Boston  man  tendered  the  miner  a  bright  new  silver  dollar. 
The  miner  thanked  him  but  declined  the  gift,  remarking  that 
the  company  paid  him  for  his  time  and  it  was  easier  to  show 
strangers  around  than  to  swing  a  pick. 

"But,"  said  the  man,  "this  is  for  you  personally."  But 
still  the  miner  declined,  saying  that  what  he  had  done  was 
no  trouble,  but  rather  a  pleasure. 

But  the  Boston  man  persisted  and  said :  "Now,  tell  me 
honestly,  my  man,  why  you  do  not  wish  to  take  this  dollar." 

The  miner  sighed  and  said:  "Well,  one  reason  is  that  I 
have  $600,000  up  in  the  bank  and  it  has  been  bothering  me  all 
the  morning  to  decide  how  T  had  better  invest  it." 

It  was  Uncle  Jimmie  and  he  smiled  softly  as  the  cage 
shot  up  the  shaft. 

A  man  and  his  wife  in  San  Francisco  filed  the  papers  in 
a  suit  against  Mr.  Mackay,  claiming  heavy  damage  for  seek- 


182  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

ing  to  alienate  the  affections  of  the  wife  from  her  husband. 
It  was  a  direct  attempt  at  blackmail  and  Mackay  never  rested 
until  he  landed  both  the  man  and  his  wife  in  the  penitentiary. 
But  when  the  news  of  the  filing  of  the  suit  reached  Mackay 
in  Virginia,  he  was  furious.  No  one  had  ever  seen  him  so 
angry  before.  He  paced  up  and  down  the  Con. -Virginia  office 
like  a  tiger  and  the  old  lines  would  have  fitted  him: 

"We  tore  them  limb  from  limb ; 
And  the  hungriest  lion  doubted 
'Ere  he  disputed  with  him." 

The  woman's  given  name  was  Amelia.  Uncle  Jimmie 
went  down  to  the  office  that  morning,  but  seeing  how  the 
atmosphere  was  he  softly  went  out  and  started  across  the  foot- 
bridge for  the  Ophir  works.  On  the  bridge  he  met  a  young 
man  and  woman.  The  young  woman  stopped  him  and  ex- 
plained that  the  young  man  was  her  brother;  that  he  was  a 
splendid  worker,  and  that  they  both  needed  what  he  could  earn 
and  besought  a  place  for  him.  Uncle  Jimmie  smiled  down  at 
her  and  said,  "My  dear!  John  tends  to  all  that,  go  to  the 
office.  I  just  left  him.  Go  and  tell  him  what  you  have  told 
me,  and  tell  him  your  name  is  Amelia  and  I  am  sure  he  will 
give  your  brother  a  place!" 

Fortunately  they  did  not  get  to  see  Mr.  Mackay  that 
morning. 

On  one  occasion  Mr.  Fair  returned  to  Virginia  after  an 
absence  of  a  couple  of  months  when  a  blacksmith  presented 
a  bill  for  $80.  Uncle  Jimmie  looked  at  it  and  said :  "Eighty 
dollars.     What  might  this  be  for?'' 

The  smith  explained  that  it  was  for  shoeing  Mrs.  Fair's 
carriage  horses,  setting  the  tires  on  the  carriage  and — but 
Uncle  Jimmie  interrupted  him  with :  "That  is  all  right,  I  was 
not  disputing  your  bill,  but  I  am  superintendent  of  four  mines, 
and  the  companies  pay  for  all  necessary  work.  Take  the  bill 
home  and  bring  me  back  four  bills,  against  the  four  companies, 
but  not  all  quite  alike.  Make  one  for  $22  to  sundries  against 
the  Con.  Virginia,  one  for  say  $18  against  the  California;  one 
for  $24  against  the  Curry  and  one  for  $16  against  the  Best 


JAMES  G.  FAIR.  183 

and  Belcher,  and  I  will  try  to  get  them  allowed,  though  times 
are  hard." 

He  went  to  San  Francisco  in  1879,  called  at  some  offices 
on  Montgomery  street  on  business,  and  glancing  around  the 
offices,  thought  he  would  like  them.  He  knew  who  owned  the 
block  and  the  agent  in  charge.  He  went  to  the  agent  and  asked 
if  the  people  in  the  corner  rooms  had  a  lease  of  the  rooms. 
The  agent  replied  that  they  merely  paid  from  month  to  month. 
"And  how  much  might  they  be  paying?"  asked  Uncle  Jimmie. 
The  agent  gave  the  figures.  "Well,"  said  Fair,  "they  would 
be  worth  $100  per  month  more  to  me.  Please  give  them  notice 
that  you  would  like  the  rooms  on  the  first  of  the  month." 

The  agent  replied  that  he  could  not  do  it,  that  the  firm 
occupying  the  rooms  had  been  there  two  years,  had  paid  the 
rent  every  month  promptly  and  he  could  not  order  them  out. 
"You  are  right,"  said  Fair,  "you  are  doing  just  as  I  would 
want  you  to,  if  you  were  my  agent." 

Three  days  later  he  met  the  agent  again  and  said  to  him, 
"You  will  kindly  inform  the  tenants  in  that  block  that  they 
will  have  to  vacate  on  the  first,  that  the  block  has  been  sold." 
"Sold?"  cried  the  astonished  agent,  "to  whom?" 

"Oh,"  said  Fair,  "the  owner  wanted  a  little  money  more 
than  he  did  the  block  and  I  exchanged  with  him,  but  you  are 
still  the  agent,  only  after  the  first  report  to  me  please." 

In  the  sixties,  Mr.  Fair,  as  he  got  up  from  the  break- 
fast table  one  morning,  said  to  his  wife :  "My  dear,  have  you 
any  money?"  Mrs.  Fair  replied  that  she  had  $7,000  in  the 
bank.  By  this  time  Uncle  Jimmie  had  put  on  his  hat,  and 
said :  "Don't  mention  the  matter  to  a  soul,  but  I  think  there 
are  a  few  dollars  in  Curry,"  and  went  out. 

Mrs.  Fair  thought  the  matter  over  for  a  few  minutes. 
Then  she  said  to  herself,  "Surely  there  would  be  no  harm  in 
letting  my  brother  know,"  and  crossed  the  street.  Her  brother 
was  away,  but  his  wife  was  home  and  Mrs.  Fair  told  her. 

She  had  a  brother  and  like  Mrs.  Fair,  her  thought  was, 
that  there  would  be  no  harm  in  telling  her  brother.  By  noon 
all  Ireland  in  Virginia  City  was  buying  Curry  and  Uncle 
Jimmie  was  unloading  it  upon  them. 


184  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

By  the  end  of  the  week  the  stock  had  dropped  out  of  sight 
and  in  the  Fair  house  there  was  a  thunder  cloud  in  every  room. 
As  Uncle  Jimmie  rose  from  the  breakfast  table  he  said  to  his 
wife :  "My  dear,  did  you  not  tell  me  that  you  had  some  money 
in  the  bank?'' 

Here  the  storm  broke.  "I  had  $7,000  and  it  is  all  lost 
in  that  old  Curry."  said  ^Irs.  Fair,  and  she  burst  into  tears. 

"My,  my.  but  I  am  sorry,"  said  Fair  then  with  a  deep 
sigh,  he  went  into  his  library  and  a  moment  later  returned 
with  a  check  for  $7,000.  Handing  it  to  his  wife  he  sighed 
again  and  said,  "I  will  help  you  out  this  time,  my  dear,  but  I 
fear  you  are  not  constituted  just  right  to  successfully  deal  in 
stocks." 

While  he  was  absent  ]\Trs.  Fair  one  day  told  ^Nlr.  Mackay 
that  if  her  husband  could  go  to  the  United  States  Senate  it 
would  be  a  great  thing  for  her  children. 

That  was  enough.  Mr.  Mackay  had  the  machinery  all  in 
order  for  his  election  when  he  returned,  and  he  was  elected. 
It  was  a  great  misfortune.  There  was  no  more  happiness  in 
the  Fair  family. 

AA'hile  he  was  senator  I  went  to  him  and  explained  that 
raw  sulphur  came  into  this  country  free,  but  there  was  a  tarifif 
of  $20  per  ton  on  refined  sulphur;  that  3  per  cent  sulphur  in 
Sicily  was  being  refined  up  to  97  per  cent  and  then  shipped  in 
as  raw  sulphur  free,  which  kept  the  nearly  pure  sulphur  depos- 
its in  Utah  from  the  market,  because  of  the  cost  of  transporta- 
tion, and  asked  him  to  see  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  and 
have  the  duty  applied  to  Sicilian  sulphur.  I  had  forgotten 
that  he  had  extensive  refining  works  in  San  Francisco,  and 
that  sulphur  was  an  essential  agent. 

When  I  had  made  my  plea,  he  sighed  and  replied :  "I 
will  do  everything  I  can  for  you,  but  I  have  three  shiploads 
of  that  Sicilian  sulphur  on  the  sea  right  now." 

He  continued  to  make  a  great  deal  of  money  up  to  his 
death,  some  fifteen  years  ago,  and  died  very  rich. 


ROLLIN  M.  DAGGETT. 

NOT  tall,  about  five  feet  eight  inches  in  height,  swarthy, 
a  remote  strain  of  Iroquois  in  his  veins,  I  think ;  heavy 
set,  weighing  close  upon  200  pounds,  a  face  full  of 
merriment  generally,  but  savage  as  a  trapped  bear  when  he  was 
angry,  a  mind  filled  with  all  sorts  of  contrasts ;  a  face  and 
voice  and  handclasp  filled  with  magnetism — his  like  we  shall 
never  look  upon  again.  He  was  born  somewhere  in  northern 
New  York,  and  in  youth  learned  the  compositors'  trade  and 
obtained  an  academic  schooling  from  the  masters  and  the 
books;  a  deeper  training  from  nature,  for  the  mountains,  the 
streams,  the  valleys,  the  forests  were  all  open  books  to  him, 
and  wind,  sunbeam  and  storm  all  brought  messages  to  him. 

He  went  with  the  first  argonauts  to  California,  started 
with  nothing  but  a  rifle,  a  blanket  and  a  little  knapsack  con- 
taining his  tooth-brush,  his  other  shirt  and  a  few  indispensable 
trinkets.  He  was  a  natural  writer,  an  editor  whose  judgment 
never  erred.  At  first  he  engaged  in  placer  mining  and  made 
a  stake,  then  he  went  to  San  Francisco  and  started  the  Golden 
Era,  a  literary  paper,  the  merits  of  which  still  linger  in  the 
minds  of  the  few  old  Calif ornians  left  on  this  side  of  the 
Great  Divide. 

Whoever  may  have  retained  a  file  of  that  paper  will  by 
running  over  it  now,  realize  anew  hovv'  strong  was  his  pen; 
how  every  impulse  of  his  soul  found  expression  in  those  col- 
umns. Late  in  the  fifties  he  disposed  of  the  paper  and  early 
went  to  the  Comstock  and  became  associate  editor  with  J.  T. 
Goodman  on  Mr.  Goodman's  Territorial  Enterprise.  Dan 
DeOuille  was  already  on  the  paper.  That  made  three  strong 
men  on  the  editorial  staff  which  a  little  later  was  reinforced 
by  Mark  Twain.  The  Enterprise  was  a  great  newspaper  in 
those  days ;  indeed,  there  was  not  a  more  brilliant  journal  any- 
where. It  had  to  be,  for  at  that  time  there  were  more  brilliant 
men  in  Virginia  City  than  were  ever  seen  in  a  town  of  that 
size  before. 

13 


186  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

On  the  Enterprise  I  got  to  know  Daggett  as  well  as  any 
one  ever  did,  for  there  are  not  many  secrets  in  an  editorial 
room  between  men  who  are  in  close  rapport  every  day.  Dag- 
gett at  that  time  had  been  a  journalist  for  twenty-five  years, 
and  had  grown  a  little  lazy  intellectually,  but  age  had  not 
withered  him  nor  custom  staled  his  infinite  variety  or  his  infi- 
nite humor.  He  was  not  witty,  but  the  drollest  genius  in  the 
world,  and  he  had  a  way  of  mixing  adjectives,  never  heard 
before  in  conversation,  and  when  a  joks  was  perpetrated  at  his 
expense,  he  would  laugh  until  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks. 

I  recall  that  one  night  when  there  was  a  company  of  gen- 
tlemen in  our  main  working  editorial  room,  he  looked  over 
at  me  and  asked  me  which  syllable  in  some  word  ought  to  be 
accented.  I  gave  him  my  idea,  whereupon  he  reached  over, 
took  the  big  dictionary  with  both  hands,  lifting  it  in  front  of 
him — he  loved  to  make  a  dramatic  display — and  most  impres- 
sively said:  "I  will  see  for  myself.  I  would  rather  be  right 
than  be  President."  I  said  gently  to  him :  "We  all  feel  that 
way  about  you.  Mr.  Daggett."  AVhereupon  he  sprang  up, 
went  to  each  gentleman  in  the  room  and  asked  for  a  gun,  and 
beseeching  from  all  an  opinion  as  to  whether  instant  murder 
would  not  be  justified,  under  a  provocation  of  that  kind. 

Elderly  people  will  remember  that  when  after  the  war  as 
the  Southern  States  were  restored  to  the  Union,  in  some  of 
them  ratlier  tough  legislatures  were  elected ;  that  in  those 
days  General  Sheridan  had  command  of  the  Department  of 
the  South  and  was  stationed  at  New  Orleans. 

That  one  day  he  sent  a  dispatch  to  Washington  declaring 
that  the  legislature  of  Louisiana  was  made  up  of  banditti  and 
asked  for  authority  to  dissolve  it.  The  dispatch  caused  a  tre- 
mendous excitement.  Democratic  legislatures  all  over  the 
country,  and  Democratic  newspapers  from  Maine  to  Cali- 
fornia were  fierce  in  their  anathemas.  At  that  time  a  gentle- 
man, whom  we  will  call  Snyder — only  that  was  not  his  name — 
was  running  an  evening  Democratic  paper  in  Virginia  City. 
When  the  dispatch  reached  him  he  was  furious  and  in  an  im- 
passioned editorial  demanded  a  new  rebellion,  if  that  kind  of 
work  was  to  be  continued. 


ROLLIN  M.  DAGGETT.  187 

It  was  a  cold  winter  night,  and  Daggett  did  not  show  up 
until  11  o'clock.  He  waddled  to  his  table  and  sat  down,  ad- 
mitting that  he  had  on  board  a  large  and  assorted  cargo  of 
gin. 

I  finished  my  work  about  midnight  and  getting  up  pro- 
posed that  we  go  out  and  get  some  hot  oysters.  He  replied 
by  holding  up  some  manuscript  and  requesting  me  to  read  it. 
I  did  and  said :  "Oh,  Daggett,  do  not  publish  this !  We  are 
good  friends  with  Snyder;  let  it  go;  his  article  will  do  no 
harm." 

Then  Daggett  took  on  his  savage  look  and  replied :  "No, 
sir.  That  other  rebellion  cost  4,000  millions  of  dollars  and 
400,000  lives.     I  am  going  to  squelch  Snyder's  right  now." 

"But,"  I  said,  "if  you  publish  this,  Snyder  will  get  his 
gun  in  the  morning  and  fill  you  full  of  buckshot  when  you  go 
on  the  street." 

With  a  cunning  look  he  said:    "Do  you  think  so?" 

"Of  course,"  I  answered.  Then  he  said :  "I  will  fix  that, 
I  will  get  up  early  in  the  morning  and  go  down  and  tell  him 
it  was  you." 

As  nearly  as  I  can  recall,  from  an  imperfect  memory,  the 
article  began  with  these  words : 

"Mr.  Snyder  paid  his  respects  to  Lieutenant  General 
Sheridan  in  his  last  evening's  Chronicle. 

"It  was  good  of  him  to  thus  remember  an  old  companion 
in  arms. 

"Both  were  in  the  service.  When  Sheridan  was  plan- 
ning a  raid  on  the  Shenandoah  valley,  Snyder  was  planning 
a  raid  on  a  government  safe. 

"Both  succeeded,  Sheridan  cleaned  out  the  valley,  Snyder 
cleaned  out  the  safe." 

There  was  more  of  it,  but  the  above  is  sufficient  to  show 
his  style. 

The  article  appeared  in  the  next  morning's  paper.  I  saw 
no  more  of  Daggett  until  after  dinner  the  next  evening,  when 
he  and  Snyder  came  in,  each  a  little  mellow.  They  had  been 
dining  together.     He  was  filled  with  contradiction. 

He  went  out  on  the  divide,  four  miles  north  of  Virginia 


188  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

City,  one  day,  to  attend  a  prize  fight,  and  acted  as  one  of  the 
judges.  He  returned  in  the  evening  and  wrote  a  scathing  arti- 
cle, picturing  the  shame  of  prize  fighting  and  its  demoraHzing 
tendencies,  and  denouncing  the  county  officers  for  permitting 
sucli  things.  It  was  our  habit  in  the  Enterprise  office  to  read 
each  other's  proof.  I  read  his  article,  then  turning  to  Dag- 
gett, said : 

"Old  man,  you  remind  me  a  little  of  Saul  before  he 
became  Paul." 

"How  is  that?"  he  asked. 

"You  must  have  seen  a  great  light  as  you  were  coming  in 
from  the  divide  today."  I  said. 

"You  lack  experience,"  he  said.  "When  you  become 
wiser — I  should  hate  to  wait  for  the  time — you  will  learn 
that  there  come  times  in  men's  lives  when  it  is  duty  to  assume  a 
virtue,  though  they  have  it  not." 

In  some  way  he  awakened  the  ire  of  a  brother  editor  in 
an  outside  town  of  the  state,  and  the  editor  came  back  at 
him  in  an  article  which  was  fierce  in  its  savagery. 

He  was  asked  if  he  was  going  to  reply  to  it.  His  response 
was  :  "Answer  that?  Would  you  hunt  snipe  with  a  howitzer?" 

He  and  I  were  quietly  at  work  one  afternoon  when  a  man 
came  in  unannounced,  walked  straight  to  him,  and  presenting  a 
folded  Enterprise,  said :  "Daggett,  that  is  a  shame.  My  cows 
are  as  well  fed  as  any  man's,  and  the  milk  I  sell  is  rich  and 
sweet." 

Daggett  took  the  paper,  looked  at  the  heading:  "Swill 
Milk,"  swiftly  glanced  it  over  and  knew  that  one  of  the  re- 
porters had  been  writing  up  the  man's  dairy  in  not  very  com- 
plimentary terms.  Turning  upon  the  man  an  indignant  face, 
he  said :  "You  are  a  pretty  fellow  to  come  to  me.  I  was  down 
by  your  corral  night  before  last;" — he  had  not  been  there  in 
three  years ; — "as  I  walked  along  the  high-board  fence  I  heard 
your  cows  gnawing  bones,  and  when  I  turned  the  corner  they 
looked  up  at  me  and  growled  like  dogs."     The  man  dropped 

his  hands,  exclaiming:    "^^"ell,  bv  !"  turned  and  left  the 

office." 

"That  was  all  on  the  square.  I  suppose?"  I  said. 


ROLLIN  M.  DAGGETT.  189 

"That  was  necessary,"  was  his  response.  "That  son  of 
a  gun  will  not  bother  us  again  for  eighteen  months." 

Daggett  met  Mr.  Sharon  one  morning,  who  said  to  him : 
"Come  and  have  breakfast  with  me!"  On  his  announcing" 
that  he  had  just  come  from  breakfast,  Sharon  said:  "Come 
along,  I  want  to  talk  with  you  a  few  minutes." 

Sharon  ordered  a  quail  on  toast  and  in  his  dainty  way 
commenced  eating,  when  Daggett  bade  the  waiter  bring  him  a 
plate  of  ham  and  eggs.  When  served  he  began  eating  in  his 
usual  hearty  manner.  "I  thought  you  said  you  had  break- 
fasted," said  Sharon.  "I  had,  but  the  way  you  eat  made  me 
hungry,"  was  the  reply. 

"Heavens,  I  would  give  half  my  fortune  for  your  appe- 
tite," was  Sharon's  comment.  "Yes,"  said  Daggett,  "and  the 
other  half  for  my  character  and  lofty  bearing.  You  see  I  am 
richer  than  you."  He  had  no  more  form  than  a  sack  of 
apples  and  his  character,  from  a  Christian  standpoint,  was  a 
good  deal  shop-worn  in  spots. 

General  Thomas  H.  Williams  was  one  of  Virginia  City's 
great  lawyers.  He  carried  through  successfully  a  difficult  law 
suit,  and  his  client  gave  him  a  small  fee  and  1,800  shares  of 
Con.  Virginia  stock.  Williams  tried  to  sell  it,  but  the  mine 
was  in  borasco  then  and  on  the  stock  board  was  rated  at  only  a 
few  cents  a  share.  But  after  a  while  whispers  began  to  be  cir- 
culated that  there  was  something  in  Con.  Virginia,  and  the  stock 
l)egan  to  rise.  Then  the  shares  were  multiplied  by  five;  bu; 
they  continued  to  creep  up.  then  to  jump,  then  to  soar,  and 
Williams  woke  up  one  morning  to  find  himself  worth  $12,- 
000,000.  It  was  not  long  until  it  began  to  be  told  that  General 
\\'illiams  was  a  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate. 

Hearing  of  this  Daggett  wrote  and  published  an  artick 
giving  some  data  in  Williams'  record,  calculated  to  depress 
^Tr.  Williams'  hopes  of  success.  The  general  met  him  next 
morning  and  trembling  with  anger,  through  white  lips  de- 
manded to  know  his  authority  for  what  he  had  said. 

Daggett  named  a  not  very  brilliant  lawyer  who  was  a  half 
])ensioner  on  Williams.  Williams  bowed  and  walked  on.  An 
hour  later  the  man  named  burst  into  the  editorial  rooms  and 


190  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

demanded  in  almost  uncontrollable  anger  whether  Daggett  had 
given  him  as  authority  for  the  infamous  article  on  General 
Williams. 

Daggett  turned  in  his  chair,  seemed  to  be  thinking  for 
an  instant  and  then  said :    "I  believe  I  did." 

"Well,  on  what  grounds?"  was  the  next  demand. 

"It  was  this  way,"  said  Daggett :  "Williams  came  on  me 
sudden-like,  and  you  were  the  first  son  of  a  gun  that  came 
into  my  mind." 

One  night  Daggett  and  another  engaged  in  a  friendly 
game  of  seven-up  in  the  Washoe  club.  They  continued  to 
play  until  11  p.  m.,  having  beer  between  the  games.  A 
final  game  was  proposed  to  decide  which  should  settle  the 
score  for  the  evening.  The  friend  agreed  to  this  and  the 
game  proceeded  until  Daggett  had  won  six  points  and  the 
friend  had  but  two.  It  was  Daggett's  deal,  and  he  gave  the 
friend  a  queen  and  seven  of  trumps.  The  friend  begged. 
Daggett,  who  had  no  trump  but  a  jack,  gave  him  one.  Then 
the  friend  led  the  queen  and  caught  Daggett's  jack,  made  high, 
low,  jack,  gift  and  the  game  and  went  out. 

A  friend  who  was  watching  the  game  turned  away  with  a 
laugh  and  left  the  club. 

In  his  softest,  pleasantest  voice,  Daggett  said :     "D . 

do  you  know  why  Quinby  went  out  ?" 

"It  is  getting  late,"  was  the  reply.  "I  suppose  he  has 
gone  home." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Daggett,  and  his  voice  was  like  a  caress. 
"He  has  gone  out  into  the  hall,  just  to  say  to  himself  that  a 
man  who  would  beg  on  a  queen  and  a  seven" — here  his  voice 
quickly  took  on  the  growl  of  an  angry  bear — "is  a  blankety. 
blankety  holdup  who,  had  he  but  the  courage,  would  rob  a 
stage." 

\Mien  the  Custer  massacre  was  wired.  I  met  Daggett  on 
the  street  and  told  him.  The  savage  in  him  came  out  like 
smallpox.  No  word  of  S3mipathy  for  the  command,  but  admira- 
tion for  the  Sioux.  With  eyes  ablaze  he  said :  "Big  fellows. 
Roman  noses,  fighters.     I  am  proud  of  them." 

Daggett  had  a  beautiful  wife  and  two  little  girls.     When 


ROLLIN  M.  DAGGETT.  191 

I  first  knew  them  the  children  were  three  and  four  and 
one-half  years  old  respectively.  In  his  home  they  would  both 
seize  him ;  he  would  fall  to  the  floor  declaring  they  had  thrown 
him  down.  They  would  pile  cushions  and  rugs  upon  him. 
shrieking  with  glee,  while  he,  looking  like  a  half-buried  hippo- 
potamus, with  awful  imprecations  would  threaten  to  fall  upon 
them  and  make  wafers  of  them  in  just  two  minutes  more. 

If  he  ever  took  an  old  lady  by  the  hand  and  told  her  how 
much  he  was  honored  in  meeting  her,  she  was  hypnotized  for 
life.  And  when  he  tried,  how  he  could  handle  English!  Listen 
to  those  opening  lines  of  his  memorial  poem  in  the  centennial 
year: 

"With  leaf  and  blossom  spring  has  come  again, 
And  tardy  Summer,  garlanded  with  flowers. 
Trips  down  the  hillside  like  a  wayward  child, 
Her  garments  fringed  with  frost ;  but  in  her  smile 
The  valleys  turn  to  green,  and  tender  flowers. 
Woke  from  their  slumber  by  the  song  of  birds. 
Reach  up  to  kiss  the  dimpled  mouth  of  May. 

"With  feet  unsandaled  and  with  solemn  step, 
Treading  the  path  that  marks  the  centuries, 
We  come  to  lay  on  valor's  silent  bed 
The  fragrant  ofiferings  of  our  hearts  and  hands." 

After  Daggett's  term  in  Congress  expired,  he  served  two 
or  three  years  as  minister  to  Hawaii.  Then  he  returned  to 
California,  and  about  nine  years  ago  he  was  stricken  witli 
hemorrhage  of  the  brain  and  died  the  same  dav. 

There  never  was  but  one  R.  M.  Daggett  in  all  this  world. 


PROFESSOR  FRANK  STEWART. 

PROFESSOR  STEWART  was  one  of  the  extraordinary 
men  of  the  west.  He  was  tall  and  slim  and  angular ; 
he  might  have  passed  for  a  twin  brother  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  though  he  had  a  handsomer  face  than  the  man  of 
men  of  his  generation.  He  was  Indiana  born  and  could  not 
have  received  very  much  schooling,  for  at  eighteen  he  volun- 
teered in  Joe  Lane's  Indiana  regiment  and  went  to  the  Mexican 
war.  He  fought  through  all  that  long  day  at  Buena  Vista, 
and  could  describe  it  in  much  more  graphic  phrases  than  any 
historian  ever  has. 

He  was  one  of  the  original  California  Argonauts.  If  he 
was  not  deeply  schooled  in  his  youth,  he  made  up  for  it  by 
incessant  study ;  he  was  not  a  miner,  but  a  wonderful  geologist, 
botanist  and  all  around  scientist.  He  was  familiar  with  the 
classics,  wrote  some  fine  short  poems,  but  his  joy  was  to  grasp 
an  abstruse  scientific  problem  and  never  rest  until  it  was 
solved.  He  would  rather,  from  the  shells  and  rocks,  calculate 
the  age  of  the  earth  than  to  attend  a  banquet.  He  joined 
^^''alker's  expedition  to  capture  Nicaragua,  his  reasoning  being 
that  it  would  be  a  mercy  to  the  people  of  that  country  to  give 
them  a  stable  government.  They  conquered  the  country,  but 
l)ecause  of  Walker's  utter  incapacity  and  unfairness,  his  com- 
mand broke  up  into  fragments ;  Walker,  with  a  few  followers, 
was  captured  and  shot,  and  Stewart  made  his  way  on  foot  to 
San  Juan,  Costa  Rica,  from  there  reached  the  coast  and  in 
some  way  caught  a  vessel  and  returned  to  California. 

He  was  editing  a  newspaper  at  Placerville,  Cal..  when  one 
day  "Snow  Shoe"  Thompson,  who  carried  the  mails  on  snow 
shoes  over  the  Sierras  between  Placerville  and  Genoa,  Nevada, 
showed  him  a  sample  of  rock  and  asked  him  what  it  was,  ex- 
plaining that  it  clogged  the  sluices  and  bothered  the  placer 
miners  in  Gold  canyon. 

Stewart  told  him  that  he  did  not  know,  but  that  it  looked 
as  though  it  might  be  black  sulphide  of  silver  as  described  in 


PROFESSOR  FRANK  S^FEWART.  193 

the  books,  and  advised  him  to  have  it  assayed  when  he  reached 
Sacramento.  Thompson  did  so,  with  astounding  results.  The 
return  was  nearly  $1,000  per  ton  in  gold  and  over  $1,200  in 
silver.  It  has  never  been  clear  which  assay  was  made  first,  the 
one  in  Sacramento  or  the  one  in  Nevada  City.  But  they  were 
nearly  at  the  same  time. 

Stewart  went  early  to  the  Comstock.  Mount  Davidson 
rises  2,000  feet  high  just  west  of  the  Comstock  lode.  At  first 
the  pitch  of  the  vein  was  to  the  west.  Professor  Silliman  being 
early  called  to  Virginia  City  to  give  expert  testimony  as  to  the 
great  lode,  predicted  that  the  heart  of  the  Comstock  wouVl  be 
found  under  Mount  Davidson.  This  was  published  in  Silli- 
man's  testimony.  Stewart  read  it,  and  with  a  laugh  said  if 
that  was  true  then  God  Almighty  had  niade  a  mistake,  and  had 
placed  the  gangue  on  the  wrong  wall. 

When  explored  a  little  below  two  hundred  feet,  the  vein 
suddenly  quit.  It  did  not  pinch  out — it  just  stopped.  Short 
drifts  were  run  east  from  the  bottoms  of  the  shafts,  then 
from  the  east  ends  of  the  drifts  shallow  winzes  were  sunk  and 
lo,  there  was  the  ledge  found,  pitching  east.  Now  the  hoisting 
works  are  a  third  of  a  mile 'down  the  mountain  to  the  east.  By 
some  upheaval  the  crest  of  the  ledge  had  been  pushed  back  and 
broken  off  so  that  its  natural  pitch  to  the  east  was  reversed 
near  the  surface  and  turned  to  the  west.  It  deceived  Silliman 
but  did  not  Stewart. 

Stewart  explored  all  the  camps  of  Nevada.  His  old 
reports  on  Tuscarora,  though  discounted  at  the  time,  have  been 
vindicated  by  the  pick,  drill  and  dynamite. 

In  early  days  he  gave  a  series  of  lectures  in  California  and 
received  the  sobriquet  of  "Earthquake"  Stewart,  because  of 
the  theory  that  he  put  out,  that  the  tremblors  in  California 
were  caused,  not  by  displacements  below  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  but  because  of  electrical  disturbances  in  the  air  and  in 
the  earth  near  the  surface,  and  predicted  that  when  railroad 
tracks  and  telegraph  wires  were  stretched  across  the  continent, 
connecting  the  eastern  and  far  western  states,  these  disturb- 
ances would  in  a  measure  be  neutralized,  that  the  tremblors 
would  grow  less  and  less  severe,  but  that  there  would  be  tre- 


194  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

mendous  electrical  storms  in  the  Missouri  and  Mississippi 
valleys. 

For  like  reasons  he  insisted  that  California  was  not  a  good 
state  for  children  to  grow  up  in;  that  they  would  be  high- 
strung,  with  abnormal,  nervous  temperaments,  and  that  like 
too  early  ripened  apples,  would  never  reach  entire  excellence. 

He  was  the  kindest-hearted  of  men,  but  became  impatient 
in  a  moment  if  anything  like  a  question  of  his  geological  con- 
clusions was  asked. 

After  he  had  spent  a  month  in  Tuscarora,  he  returned  to 
Virginia  City,  and  calling  at  the  Enterprise,  was  enthusiastic 
over  the  new  camp. 

A  gentleman  from  New  York  had  brought  letters  to  me 
and  we  were  conversing  when  the  professor  came  in.  He  at 
once  plunged  into  a  description  of  the  camp,  and  after  talking 
a  few  moments  he  suddenly  stopped  with  the  remark :  'T  will 
show  you  just  how  it  is."  Then  he  went  to  a  table,  sat  down, 
picked  up  a  pencil  and  was  busy  for  several  minutes  making  a 
sketch.  When  he  had  finished  it  he  brought  it  back,  explain- 
ing how  each  mine,  thus  far,  had  been  located,  and  then  gave 
the  course  of  the  vein  as  he  had  traced  it  from  the  formation, 
explaining  what  mines  would  be  liable  to  have  ore  bodies  and 
which  would  not.  His  description  lasted  perhaps  fifteen  min- 
utes, and  then  the  New  Yorker  said  gently  enough,  "This  is 
your  theory,  Professor." 

"There  is  no  theory  about  it.  That  is  the  way  God  Al- 
mighty made  it,"  said  Stewart,  savagely,  and  rolling  up  his 
sketch,  left  the  office  without  another  word. 

When  any  new  specimen  of  rock  or  shell  was  shown  him, 
he  had  a  fashion  of  studying  it,  sometimes  for  fifteen  or  twentv 
minutes,  until  he  got  it  classified  in  his  own  mind,  and  then  he 
would  explain  what  it  was.  to  what  age  it  belonged  and  all 
about  it. 

He  seldom  drank  any  strong  liquor,  but  about  once  in  a 
year  or  two  he  would  drink  for  a- day  or  two.  After  a  long- 
absence  on  a  hard  trip  to  some  mines  he  got  into  Elko  one 
afternoon.  At  that  time  there  was  a  district  judge  in  Elko 
who  drank  a  good   deal  too  much.     Meeting  Stewart,   thev 


PROFESSOR  FRANK  STEWART.  195 

drank  together,  then  drank  again,  and  as  the  night  came  down 
they  were  both  how-came-you-so,  seated  at  a  table  in  the  bar 
room  of  the  hotel,  unconscious  that  forty  or  fifty  men  were 
looking  on  and  listening  The  more  Stew^art  drank  the  brighter 
he  seemed  to  grow,  while  the  more  his  companion  drank  the 
stupider  he  became.  At  last  Stewart  began  to  describe  that 
day  at  Buena  Vista ;  how  General  Wool,  early  in  the  morning, 
in  splendid  uniform,  great  epaulettes  and  a  plumed  hat,  rode 
along  the  lines,  crying  to  the  men  that  it  was  Washington's 
birthday  and  American  soldiers  could  never  be  whipped  on 
Washington's  birthday ;  how  the  battle  opened ;  how  early  Jeff 
Davis,  with  his  Mississippi  regiment  of  riflemen,  without  a 
bayonet  in  the  regiment,  stopped  4,000  Mexican  lancers  in  full 
charge ;  stopped  them  and  rolled  them  back,  covering  the  plain 
with  dead  men  and  horses ;  how  then  the  fight  centered  around 
the  regiments  of  Hardin,  McGee  and  Clay,  and  all  three  were 
killed ;  then  the  storm  broke  over  Lincoln  and  his  regulars 
and  Lincoln  was  killed,  and  when  Bragg  sent  back  for  rein- 
forcements and  there  being  none  to  send  him.  General  Taylor 
in  person,  on  his  white  horse,  rode  to  him  and  gave  the  famous 
order:  "A  little  more  grape.  Captain  Bragg."  But  this  was 
but  preliminary  to  his  description  of  the  prodigies  which  Joe 
Lane  with  his  Lidiana  regiment  performed,  when  suddenly 
Stewart's  friend,  the  judge,  roused  up  and  said:  "Professor, 
were  you  in  that  Indiana  regiment  that  ran  like  blazes  from 
that  fight?" 

Stewart  stopped  talking,  looked  across  the  table  for  quite 
two  minutes  at  the  judge  and  then  broke  out  with:  "I  can't 
classify  you,  sir.  I  don't  know  whether  you  are  a  fool,  sir,  or 
a  .son  of  a  she  wolf." 

The  listeners  shouted  with  laughter.  Stewart  looked 
around  at  them,  then,  rising  hastily,  said :  "I  think  it  is  an  hour 
after  the  time  when  I  should  have  been  in  bed,"  and  hastily 
left  the  room. 

He  came  into  my  office  one  morning  with  a  joyous  look 
on  his  face,  and  laid  a  specimen  on  my  desk,  saying:  "What 
do  you  think  that  is?"  I  said:  "It  looks  like  a  piece  of  brick 
that  was  too  much  burned  in  the  kiln." 


196  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

"Not  much,"  he  said;  " ,  the  great  traveler,  just 

gave  it  to  me.  It  is  a  part  of  a  brick  Avhich  he  picked  up  from 
the  ruins  of  the  Tower  of  Babel.  It  proves  what  I  have  always 
said.  You  know  the  Bible  says  a  fire  came  down  from  heaven 
and  destroyed  that  tower.  It  was  just  an  old-fashioned  tre- 
mendous electric  storm^a  cyclone  and  thunder  storm  com- 
bined, and  the  lightning  vitrified  that  brick." 

He  was  a  Democrat,  and  with  his  breeding  he  never  liked 
New  England,  always  expressing  the  belief  that  except  for 
Phillips,  Garrison,  Sumner,  Mrs.  Stowe  and  the  others  there 
would  never  have  been  any  secession  or  war.  But  in  the 
eighties  some  croppings  were  found  in  Maine  which,  being- 
assayed,  showed  fair  values  in  silver.  A  Boston  company  was 
organized  to  develop  the  property.  But  an  expert's  opinion 
was  wanted,  and  one  of  the  directors  wrote  to  one  of  the  great 
mining  companies  on  the  Comstock  to  send  them  a  man  both 
practical  and  scientific.  Stewart  was  sent.  He  was  engaged 
as  consulting  engineer,  which  held  him  in  Boston  most  of  the 
time,  only  making  occasional  visits  to  the  property.  After 
three  months  he  wrote  me :  "Do  not  waste  your  life  any  longer 
in  the  west!  Come  here!  I  never  knew  what  a  whole  com- 
munity of  gentlemen  meant  until  I  came  to  Boston." 

From  Boston  he  received  a  call  to  examine  a  mine  in  \A'est 
Virginia.  He  returned  with  a  fearful  cold,  which  soon  devel- 
oped into  pneumonia,  and  he  died  three  days  later. 

Poor  Stewart;  he  was  altogether  a  most  gifted,  manly 
man. 


GOVERNOR  LUTHER  R.  BRADLEY. 

IT  IS  with  a  feeling  of  deep  sorrow  that  I  recall  the  mem- 
ory of  Governor  Bradley,  for  he  was  long  my  friend : 
but  there  came  a  time  when  it  was  my  duty  to  inflict  upon 
him  perhaps  the  greatest  disappointment  of  his  life. 

He  was  an  early  comer  to  California,  one  of  the  Argo- 
nauts, I  believe.  He  settled  near  Stockton  in  that  state.  He 
was  from  Virginia,  unlettered,  spoke  in  the  dialect  of  the  poor 
whites  and  negroes  of  that  state,  was  intensely  pro-southern, 
and  went  to  Stockton  just  when  Judge  Terry,  Dr.  Ainsley 
and  the  full  band  of  fire-eaters  centered  there  and  controlled 
things  politically,  sometimes  in  a  most  partisan  and  arrogant 
manner.  Governor  Bradley  was  in  full  sympathy  with  them.  He 
was  not  more  than  five  feet  seven  or  eight  inches  in  height,  but 
stockily  built,  and  must  have  weighed  200  pounds.  I  never 
knew  him  until  he  reached  Nevada.  Ever  after  that  he  wore 
very  long,  full  whiskers.  It  was  said  that  when  the  news  of 
the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency  was  confirmed, 
he  declared  that  he  would  never  have  his  hair  cut  nor  beard 
shaved  until  the  people  got  sonie  sense  and  elected  a  Democrat 
President.  The  truth  of  this  I  cannot  affirm,  but  think  it  very 
liable  to  be  true.  He  came  to  Nevada,  I  think,  in  1860,  driving 
<^ver  a  small  band  of  cattle.  He  located  near  where  Austin 
now  is. 

At  that  time  Nevada  was  covered  with  bunch  grass,  which 
is  most  nutritious.  Cattle  pastured  upon  it  in  the  autumn, 
when  the  seed  ripens,  would  in  three  months,  from  half  skele- 
tons take  on  full  flesh,  and  the  meat  be  equal  to  or  better  than 
the  best  stall  fed  beef,  for  the  seed  was  really  grain  and 
the  very  finest  quality  for  beef.  There  was  a  series  of  mild 
winters  after  1860;  the  governor's  herds  swiftly  increased  and 
he  became  a  real  cattle  king.  In  the  early  seventies,  I  asked 
him  once  if  he  ever  made  any  provisions  for  protecting  and 
feeding  his  cattle  in  the  winter,  and  reminded  him  of  the  legend 
that  buffalo  were  plenty  in  the  Great  Basin  until   the  fierce 


198  AS  1  REMEMBER  THEM. 

winter  of  1838,  which  killed  them  all.  He  replied  that  he 
only  brought  a  small  band  of  cattle  to  Nevada  and  just  let  them 
rustle,  and  he  had  done  reasonably  well.  He  added :  ''There 
is  a  good  deal  in  educating  a  critter  He  is  like  a  man.  If  he 
knows  his  living  depends  on  his  rustling,  he  will  rustle."  In 
1870  the  Democrats,  looking  around  for  a  candidate  for  gov- 
ernor, determined  to  nominate  Bradley. 

The  Comstock  had  been  in  borasco  for  several  years  until 
1869.  Mr.  Sharon  had  held  things  together,  and  made  the 
great  discoveries  in  the  Belcher  and  Crown  Point  possible. 
Not  one  man  in  a  thousand  comprehended  the  work  he  had 
performed,  but  he  was  called  king.  Sutro  was  filling  the  air 
of  the  whole  state  with  his  complainings  against  Sharon  and 
the  bank  ring,  and  when  the  Republicans  nominated  F.  A. 
Tritte,  a  broker  in  Virginia  City  and  friend  of  Mr.  Sharon, 
though  he  was  one  of  the  most  splendid  men  that  ever  lived  in 
Nevada,  the  Democrats  with  "Old  Broadhorns,"  as  they  called 
him,  and  a  cry  for  an  honest  government,  easily  elected  their 
candidate. 

He  had  not  the  first  qualification  for  the  place;  no  clear 
knowledge  of  the  duties  of  the  office,  nor  of  the  needs  of  the 
state,  but  he  was  a  kindly  old  man  and  had  a  streak  of  native 
strategy  about  him  which  was  in  truth  the  most  catching  kind 
of  politics.    A  couple  of  samples  of  this  will  make  it  clear. 

Crossing  the  street  in  Carson  one  day,  a  man  in  a  lumber 
wagon,  with  his  wife  and  child  with  him,  drove  past,  and,  see- 
ing the  Governor,  stopped  his  team,  and  accosted  him  with, 
"Excuse  me.  Governor,  but  me  and  my  wife  wanted  to  speak 
to  you  and  tell  you  that  we  and  all  the  neighbors  up  in  Douglas 
county  were  glad  that  you  were  elected,  and  to  wish  you  well." 

The  Governor  stepped  up  to  the  wagon,  shook  hands  with 
both,  told  them  he  had  been  hoping  that  he  and  his  neighbors 
would  come  to  Carson,  that  he  wanted  to  see  them  all,  and  all 
the  time  was  patting  the  child's  head.  They  drove  away  with 
radiant  faces,  when  the  Governor  turned  to  a  friend  and  asked, 
"Who  be  they?" 

The  friend  replied,  "Why,  that  is ;  they  live  in 

Douglas  county." 


GOVERNOR  LUTHER  R.  BRADLEY.     199 

"And  whar  be  Douglas  county  ?"  asked  his  excellency. 

On  another  occasion,  as  the  Governor  went  out  from  his 
executive  chambers  one  morning,  he  noticed  that  the  janitor 
was  removing  the  desks  from  the  assembly  chamber.  Going  to 
him,  the  Governor  asked:  "What's  yer  doin',  Jake?"  The 
janitor  explained  that  the  Knights  of  Pythias  from  all  over  the 
state  had  been  in  convention  in  Carson  for  two  days,  that  they 
were  going  to  have  a  ball  in  the  assembly  hall  that  night  and 
he  was  preparing  the  room  for  them. 

'Tvnights  of  Pythias,"  said  the  Governor,  "who  be  they?" 
The  janitor  replied:  "Why,  Governor,  it  is  an  order  like  the 
Masons  or  Odd  Fellows ;  have  you  not  noticed  them  here  for  a 
couple  of  days  wearing  sashes  and  swords?" 

"O  them  fellows,"  said  the  Governor;  "why  they'll  get 
drunk  and  muss  everything  up.  I  wouldn't  let  'em  have  the 
hall,  Jake." 

At  that  moment  one  of  the  Knights  came  in,  the  scabbard 
of  his  sword  clanking  on  the  marble  floor  at  every  step. 

The  Governor  turned  to  him,  right  in  the  presence  of  the 
janitor  and  said  cheerily :  "Well,  my  son,  are  you  going  to 
have  a  good  time  tonight?" 

"I  hope  so.  Governor,"  was  the  reply. 

Then  the  Governor,  with  a  smile,  said :  "I  heeard  you 
was  going  to  have  a  party  and  I  war  so  anxious  that  every- 
tliing  would  be  pleasant  for  you.  I  war  out  superintending 
Jake's  work  myself." 

Could  anyone  beat  that?  He  was  re-elected  governor 
in  1874.  By  1876  the  bonanza  was  in  full  blast  and  the  Com- 
stock  was  soaring  as  never  before. 

AA'hen  the  Legislature  met  in  January,  1877,  the  Gover- 
nor, listening  to  some  not  very  level-headed  advisers,  recom- 
mended in  his  message  a  mighty  tax  on  bullion,  and  further, 
that  all  incorporations  should  be  taxed  for  the  full  amount  of 
shares  in  their  capital  stock  at  par. 

That  meant  that  if  the  owners  of  a  prospect  incorporated 
with  say  150,000  shares  of  the  value  of  one  dollar  per  share, 
m  hope  of  selling  a  few  shares,  sa  '  at  10  cents  per  share  in 
order  to  help  develop  the  prospect,  the  incorporation  should  be 


200  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

assessed  for  the  full  $150,000  named  in  their  incorporation 
papers. 

Vs'hen  the  time  for  nominations  drew  near  in  1878.  I 
beg'ged  the  Democrats,  through  the  Enterprise,  not  to  try  to 
run  the  governor  for  a  third  term ;  explaining  that  the  Repub- 
lican press  of  the  state  had  always  been  most  considerate  of 
the  governor  because  of  his  age  and  kindly  ways,  but  it  would 
be  necessary  to  defeat  him  if  he  was  a  candidate  again,  and 
that  one  result  would  be  to  sunder  old  ties  of  friendship  which 
it  would  be  sweet  to  keep. 

The  Democrats  met  in  state  convention  two  days  later 
and  nominated  the  old  man  by  acclamation. 

Of  course  the  fight  was  on  at  once.  I  do  not  think  there 
was  ever  any  other  such  political  fight  on  this  coast.  It  did 
not  relax,  but  rather  grew  hotter  and  hotter  every  day  for 
two  months,  and  the  old  man  went  down  under  the  storm. 

But  he  got  even  in  a  little  way.  Four  years  before,  I  had 
called  upon  a  friend  in  Sacramento.  -  In  a  paddock  near  his 
house  he  had  a  mare  and  a  baby  colt  perhaps  three  months  old. 
It  seemed  a  wonderful  colt,  and  I  asked  the  friend  what  he 
would  take  to  keep  him  and  break  him  and  send  him  to  me 
when  the  colt  was  four  years  old.  He  named  a  price  and 
I  paid  him.  Just  before  election,  when  the  campaign  was  at  its 
height,  the  friend  sent  me  the  colt.  He  was  a  wonder,  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  horses  ever  seen  in  the  west.  The  stable 
boys  w'ere  hitching  him  to  a  sulky  one  day  when  Governor 
Bradley  passed.  He  looked  into  the  barn,  saw  the  horse, 
entered  and  walked  around  him  several  times  exclaiming, 
'What  a  beauty!  AVhat  a  beauty!"  naming  his  regal  points  in 
a  kind  of  ecstasy.  Finally  he  asked  who  owned  the  animal. 
^^'hen  told,  he  said :    "That  thar  feller  in  the  Enterprise?" 

\\nTen  answered  yes,  he  turned  abruptly,  and  saying: 
"That  there  colt  looks  ter  have  a  heap  more  sense  than  his 
owner,"  left  the  barn. 

The  following  winter  was  a  most  severe  one,  and  20,000 
head  of  the  governor's  cattle  perished. 

His  disappointments,  his  financial  losses  and  his  great  age 
were  too  much  for  him,  and  a  few  months  later  he  died. 


GOVERNOR  LUTHER  R.  BRADLEY.     201 

He  died  thinking  I  was  his  enemy  and  never  knew  that 
there  never  was  a  moment  when  personaUy  I  would  not  have 
gladly  gone  out  of  my  way  to  serve  him  in  any  manner  possi- 
])le,  and  he  never  could  understand  why  the  best  interests  of 
Nevada  made  it  necessary  to  defeat  his  third  election. 

If  any  reader  thinks  the  personal  pronoun  is  too  much  in 
evidence  in  this,  I  hope  he  will  believe  that  it  is  but  to  make 
clear  to  the  many  friends  of  the  Governor  who  are  still  alive 
that  sometimes  an  honest  newspaper  has  to  present  things  in 
such  a  light  as  makes  everyone  connected  with  it  wish  that  he 
could  avoid  the  duty. 

Governor  Bradley  was  a  kindly,  generous  man  in  life.  He 
was,  too,  shrewd  and  cunning  in  many  ways,  a  typical  fron- 
tiersman, and  the  hope  of  all  who  knew  him  is  that  in  the 
beyond  in  the  clearer  light,  he  will  see  the  hearts  of  men  as 
they  really  are,  and  be  able  to  understand  all  that  was  hidden 
from  his  darkened  eyes  here. 


14 


A 


ALVINZA  HAYWARD. 

LVINZA  HAYWARD  lived  about  the  most  even  life 
of  any  of  the  famous  men  who  won  and  lost  on  the 
Comstock.  He  was  an  Argonaut.  When  he  looked 
first  upon  the  Golden  state  he  was  six  feet  in  height,  strong 
and  brave,  and  looked  like  one  who  had  come  to  conquer.  From 
the  first  his  thought  seemed  to  be  that  the  legitimate  work  of 
a  man  in  California  was  mining;  that  everything  else  was 
secondary  employment.  He  made  some  money  in  the  placers 
in  Amador  county,  but  the  great  mother  lode  ran  by  his  door, 
and  he  was  irrestibly  attracted  to  it.  He  had  assays  made 
from  it,  and  though  he  knew  nothing  about  quartz  mining,  or 
the  reduction  of  gold  ores,  he  knew  that  the  simplest  form  was 
to  crush  ores  by  stamps,  then  to  wash  the  pulp,  and  if  the  ores 
were  free  a  fair  proportion  of  the  gold  could  be  saved. 

So  he  crushed  some  pounds  of  the  ores  in  a  common  mor- 
tar and  then  washed  the  fine  pulp  in  a  pan.  In  that  way,  by 
comparing  what  he  could  save  from  twenty  pounds  of  rock, 
with  the  assays  of  2,000  pounds,  he  could  estimate  what  per- 
centage of  the  ore  in  a  ton  could  be  obtained  in  a  mill.  In 
that  way  he  found  that  the  ore  was  "free  milling;"  that  is,  it 
was  not  held  in  combination  with  some  other  metal  that  would 
carry  it  away  with  the  pulp,  as  it  was  run  over  a  quicksilvered 
plate.  Then  he  had  a  crude  mill  built  and  found  that  he  could 
make  money  much  faster  than  in  the  placers,  and  so  in  the  early 
fifties  had  accumulated  what  was  then  a  great  fortune  and  a 
high  name  among  the  business  men  of  California.  He  really 
was  working  a  mother  lode  bonanza. 

Then  he  devoted  much  of  his  fortune  to  many  different 
enterprises.  He  was  an  original  stockholder  in  the  California 
bank. 

He  was  intimate  with  Ralston,  Mills,  and  the  others  of  the 
bank ;  when  Gorham  and  Jones  ran  for  governor  and  lieutenant 
governor,  he  formed  a  great  attachment  for  J.  P.  Jones — as 
almost  anv  man  would,   for  there  was  never  but  one   T-   P- 


ALVINZA    HAYWARD.  203 

Jones — and  we  suspect  that  he  advised  Jones  to  go  to  Nevada, 
and  helped  get  him  the  place  of  superintendent  of  the  Crown 
Point  mine  in  which  Hay  ward  was  a  heavy  stockholder. 

In  the  mines  in  Amador,  Mr.  Hayward  was  always 
dressed  as  a  miner  with  gray  shirt,  overalls  and  miners'  boots ; 
in  San  Francisco  he  was  always  attired  like  a  gentleman  of 
leisure  and  finely  groomed,  and  altogether  an  attractive-look- 
ing man  of  affairs.     He  was  indeed  a  real  captain  of  industry. 

As  the  Crown  Point  progressed  under  the  management 
of  Jones,  Hayward  stood  behind  him,  he  being  the  controlling 
stockholder,  and  as  the  indications  pointed  to  a  bonanza  sure, 
bought  more  and  more  of  the  stock  until  when  in  a  very  few 
months  the  stock  jumped  from  50  cents  a  share  to  $1,800,  both 
men  became  several  times  millionaires.  That  bonanza  gave 
up.  if  we  remember  rightly,  something  over  $33,000,000. 

When  Mr.  Hayward  began  to  grow  rich  in  Amador,  he 
started  to  help  his  fellow  miners  when  they  were  in  trouble. 
The  amount  of  these  loans,  which  were  generally  gifts,  only  the 
books  in  the  Beyond  can  ever  reveal.  Certainly  Alvinza  Hay- 
ward never  knew  the  sum. 

This  he  kept  up  all  his  life,  one  result  of  which  was  that 
he  had  mining  interests  in  many  places. 

In  a  certain  district  in  Placer  county,  "drift  diggings" 
were  found.  In  the  immemorial  past  a  river  had  threaded  its 
way  through  that  region. 

By  some  mighty  convulsion  of  nature  this  river  was  cov- 
ered deep  by  overturned  mountains.  Its  source  was  turned  in 
some  other  direction  and  the  ancient  bed  of  the  river  was 
buried. 

In  a  few  places,  through  the  erosion  of  the  years,  the 
mountains  covering  the  dead  river  had  been  worn  down,  leav- 
ing exposed  small  portions  of  its  bed. 

This  bed  was  often  several  feet  deep  in  gravel  which  was 
rich  in  gold  and  when  the  bed  rock  was  reached  it  was  often 
fabulously  rich. 

AAHien  found  the  only  way  to  work  this  was  by  drifting 
up  stream — for  it  was  filled  with  water — running  the  gravel 
out  on  cars  and  washine  it  outside. 


204  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Mr.  Hayward  had  some  interests  in  the  camp,  but  another 
man  had  an  extremely  rich  section  of  the  old  stream  and  in  a 
few  months  took  from  it  $1,500,000. 

Then  he  went  east  on  a  visit.  In  New  York  City,  at  the 
home  of  a  relative,  he  met  a  beautiful  and  most  brilliant  young 
lady  who  was  poor  and  was  earning  her  living  by  teaching. 

She  had  cjuarreled  with  her  sweetheart  the  very  day  before 
she  met  this  miner  who  had  just  made  $1,500,000.  He  was 
carried  away  at  the  first  sight  of  the  lovely  girl  and  in  two 
weeks  sailed  from  New  York  for  California  with  her  for  a 
bride. 

Reaching  San  Francisco,  her  husband  offered  to  buy  her 
any  home  that  she  might  select,  but  she  told  him  it  was  a  con- 
tract for  life,  that  while  he  remained  a  miner  she  intended  to 
be  a  miner's  wife,  so  she  went  with  him  to  their  wild  camp  in 
the  high  Sierras  and  remained  there  three  years.  There  she 
sometimes  met  Mr.  Hayward. 

Afterwards  they  went  to  Auburn,  built  a  fine  home  and 
remained  there  until  the  husband  died. 

In  addition  to  the  first  stake  of  $1,500,000,  the  man  took 
another  million  from  the  old  river  bed;  but  he  knew  nothing 
about  business ;  he  invested  his  money  in  a  hundred  schemes, 
and  wlien  he  died  his  wife  found  that  there  was  nothing  left 
but  the  home  and  the  "remnants"  of  the  old  mine.  She  went 
back  to  the  old  camp  and  looked  it  carefully  over  and  then  went 
to  find  Mr.  Hayward  in  San  Francisco.  She  called  upon  him 
and  told  him  that  she  had  come  to  him  to  borrow  $10,000, 
maybe  $15,000. 

He  smiled  and  asked  her  what  her  plans  were,  for  he 
kr.ew  that  her  husband  had  left  her  next  to  nothing. 

Then  she  unrolled  before  him  a  map  or  map  and  sketch 
combined,  and  asked  him  if  he  recognized  the  place.  He  looked 
long  at  it  and  then  said.  "It  is  as  the  camp  was  fifteen 
years  ago." 

"That  was  when  I  made  it,"  she  replied. 

"You  made  it?"  he  asked. 

Then  she  explained  that  when  a  young  girl  she  used  to 
make  caricatures  of  everv  teacher  that  she  did  not  like,  and 


ALVINZA    HAYWARD.  205 

everv  boy  that  she  found  looking  at  her  in  school.  That  when 
her  late  husband  found  her  in  New  York  she  was  teaching 
mathematics  and  drawing;  that  when  her  honeymoon  began 
to  wane  up  in  that  mining  camp,  to  occupy  herself  she  began  to 
sketch  the  camp. 

"But,"  she  added,  "look  closer,  Mr.  Hayward !  Do  you 
see  these  lines?  They  represent  the  old  river  bed,  from  this 
point  (touching  the  map)  up  and  down.  My  husband  worked 
out  the  bed  above  as  far  as  he  could  follow  it,  and  found  that 
the  fall  averaged  twenty  feet  to  the  mile.  Then  he  went  below 
and  started  this  tunnel  (tapping  another  line)  to  strike  the  old 
bed  in  700  feet. 

He  ran  it  50  feet,  and  then  the  upper  river  bed  was  paying 
so  much  that  he  put  all  the  men  to  work  there  and  never 
resumed  work  on  this  lower  tunnel.  I  want  the  money  to  drive 
that  tunnel  200  feet  more,  to  strike  the  channel." 

"Suppose  you  do  not  strike  it?"  asked  Mr.  Hayward. 

"But  I  shall.  I  must,"  was  the  reply.  "My  children  and 
myself  cannot  get  along  without  it." 

"What  do  you  know  about  mining?"  asked  Hayward. 

"Did  I  not  work  three  years  in  those  mines?"  she  asked, 
and  then  added :  "Please  keep  in  mind  that  I  am  no  common 
miner.     I  am  a  mining  engineer.     Look  at  that  map !" 

"Well,"  said  Hayward  at  last,  "such  pluck  as  yours  de- 
serves recognition.     Draw  on  me  for  all  you  w^ant !" 

The  lady  made  good ;  paid  him  back  e\e\y  cent  and  had 
something  left  for  herself  and  children.  I  can  not  tell  her  name 
for  the  children  were  still  alive  when  I  last  heard  from  them, 
though  their  mother  is  dead.  Everyone  in  Auburn  will  know 
whom  I  mean. 

As  Mr.  Hayward  grew  old  he  became  a  great  spiritualist, 
a  sort  of  Uncle  Jesse  Knight,  for  rumor  has  it  that  Uncle  Jesse 
dreams  out  bonanzas ;  but  Mr.  Hayward's  spirits  came  out 
flat-footed  and  told  him  what  mines  would  do. 

The  late  Charlie  Lane  found  or  obtained  an  option  on  the 
Ltica  mine  at  Angels  camp  in  Calaveras  county,  Cal.,  and  went 
at  once  to  Mr.  Hayward  for  help.  Hayward  was  then  an  old 
man.  but  the  ITtica  was  on  the  mother  !ode :  he  looked  at  the 


206  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

samples  Lane  had  brought  (whether  the  spirits  approved  I  do 
not  know,  but  Hay  ward  did)  and  told  Lane  to  go  ahead,  and  in 
the  next  six  years  the  mine  made  them  both  what  would  have 
been  great  fortunes  before  the  Comstock  was  found.  He  made 
his  first  and  last  fortune  on  the  mother  lode,  and  though  he 
made  more  money  on  the  Comstock  than  he  did  in  California, 
his  first  love  was  for  that  same  great  lode  that  plows  its  way  for 
three  hundred  miles  through  the  Sierras ;  which  has  made  so 
many  people  rich  and  which,  its  friends  believe,  holds  yet  in 
its  course  vastly  more  than  it  has  so  far  given  up. 

Mr.  Hayward  was  one  of  the  first  to  demonstrate  its  pos- 
sibilities; it  made  him  a  millionaire  when  millionaires  were  rare 
objects  m  this  old  world,  and  he  in  return  made  it  clear  to  the 
men  of  California  that  the  quartz  of  the  state  would  many 
times  make  up  for  the  vanishing  placers. 

Mr  Hayward  died  a  few^  years  ago  in  San  Francisco. 

We  do  not  know  of  one  reproach  that  followed  him  out 
into  the  Beyond. 

He  came  to  California  and  single-handed  forged  out  a 
fortune  for  himself  and  made  it  from  the  hills ;  no  other  man 
was  made  poorer  by  it,  rather  while  he  was  wresting  it  from 
the  stubborn  rocks,  his  life  was  a  blessing  to  those  around  him ; 
he  kept  his  brain  alert  to  find  where  he  could  be  of  use  to  his 
fellow  men  and  his  heart  always  open  and  generous. 

At  the  same  time  he  was  a  shrewd  business  man;  if  he 
was  ever  foolish  with  his  money  it  was  because  he  intended  to 
be.  Among  as  sharp  men  as  ever  battle  for  fortunes  either 
through  the  legitimate  channels  of  business  or  by  desperate 
plunging  on  the  stock  market,  Mr.  Hayward  never  lost  his 
head  nor  his  temper,  but  moved  easily  among  them,  saved 
what  he  had  made  and  added  to  it. 

He  believed  in  the  invincibility  of  work ;  his  love  for 
California  and  his  desire  to  see  the  great  state  exalted  were 
grand  passions  wnth  him ;  he  was  one  of  the  very  strong  men 
of  the  Golden  State  for  more  than  half  a  century ;  and  among 
those  who  changed  the  great  state  from  its  barbaric  .glory  in 
1849  to  its  enlightened  splendor  of  today,  not  one  did  nobler 
nor  higher  nor  more  effective  work  than  Alvinza  Hayward. 


I 


HARRY  I.  THORNTON. 

HE  WAS  slight  and  fair,  not  more  than  twenty-four 
years  of  age,  I  think,  when  he  reached  CaHfornia,  but 
he  was  already  an  accomplished  lawyer.  He  hailed,  I 
believe,  from  Alabama,  and  was  of  the  first  families.  He  set- 
tled in  Downieville  and  soon  made  a  name  as  an  orator  and 
lawyer,  and  was  looked  upon  as  sure  to  stamp  himself  upon 
the  state  as  one  of  its  foremost  citizens.  His  private  life 
was  above  reproach — he  always  carried  himself  as  one  who 
was  above  winning  anything  except  on  merit,  and  as  though 
his  self-respect  was  something  which  he  would  sooner  die 
than  stain  or  wound.  After  awhile  the  Sierra  district  sent 
him  to  the  legislature  and  he  soon  made  a  name  there  as  a 
speaker  and  legislator.  He  was  a  Democrat  of  the  Southern 
school  and  politics  were  fast  taking  on  a  fiery  form  in  Cali- 
fornia. The  killing  of  Broderick  by  Terry,  and  Ferguson  by 
Penn  Johnson  had  inflamed  northern-born  men  of  all  parties. 
Though  they  were  both  killed  in  duels,  the  feeling  in  the  first 
case  was  that  he  was  challenged  by  an  expert  duelist,  not  be- 
cause of  the  reason  assigned,  but  to  get  him  out  of  the  way, 
and  in  the  latter  case  that  it  was  little  better  than  murder,  for 
Ferguson  was  one  of  the  most  genial,  gentle  and  kindlv  of  men. 

The  extreme  Southern-born  men  counted  on  General 
Albert  Sidney  Johnston  turning  over  the  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion stored  in  Alcatraz  to  them.  But  he  was  a  soldier,  and  was 
on  his  honor  to  perform  his  duty,  and  though  all  his  sympa- 
thies were  with  the  Confederacy,  he  would  not  betray  his  trust. 
\\nien  he  was  relieved  by  General  Sumner,  and  resigned  from 
tlic  army  to  start  for  the  vSouth,  a  great  many  southern-born 
men  in  California  followed  him. 

Thornton  made  a  ringing  speech  in  the  legislature  giving 
his  reasons  why  he  could  no  longer  serve  California  as  one  of 
her  law-makers,  sent  in  his  resignation,  and  likewise  left  for 
the  South. 

He  was  at  once  given  a  commission  and  a  place  on  Gen- 


208  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

eral  Pat  Cleburne's  staff.  He  fought  in  all  the  battles  that 
the  fiery  Cleburne  engaged  in,  the  most  furious  one  being  at 
Franklin.  He  told  me  that  on  that  afternoon  Hood  ordered 
six  separate  assaults  upon  the  earthworks  behind  which  Scho- 
field  with  his  seven  thousand  veterans  played  upon  Hood's 
army  in  the  open  field.  Six  high  officers  of  Hood's  army  were 
killed,  among  whom,  if  we  are  not  mistaken,  Cleburne  was  one, 
with  a  score  of  lesser  officers  and  an  appalling  list  of  men. 
Franklin  virtually  decided  the  battle  of  Nashville. 

It  was  what  Hougomont  was  to  Waterloo,  and  a  part  of 
Hugo's  description  would  apply  to  Franklin,  as  follows : 

"Napoleon  sent  his  brother  Jerome  against  Hougomont; 
the  divisions  of  Foy,  Guillemont  and  Bacheln  hurled  thunders 
against  it;  nearly  the  entire  corps  of  Rielle  was  employed 
against  it  and  miscarried;  Killerman's  brigades  were  exhausted 
on  this  heroic  section  of  wall.  Banduin's  brigade  was  not 
strong  enough  to  force  Hougomont  on  the  north,  and  the  di- 
vision of  Gage  could  not  do  more  than  effect  the  beginning 
of  a  breach  on  the  south.' 

And  the  result : 

"Banduin  killed;  Foy  wounded;  conflagration,  massacre 
carnage  ;  a  river  of  English  blood ;  French  blood ;  German  blood 
mingled  in  fury ;  a  well  crammed  with  corpses ;  the  regiment 
of  Nassau  and  the  regiment  of  Brunswick  destroyed :  Duplat 
killed  ;  Blackmaun  killed  ;  the  English  guards  mutilated  :  twenty 
French  battalions  besides  the  forty  from  Reille's  corps  desci- 
mated ;  three  thousand  men  in  that  hovel  of  Hougomont  cut 
down,  slashed  to  pieces,"  etc. 

As  will  be  remembered,  when  Sherman  at  Atlanta  wired 
Grant,  asking  permission  to  break  away  from  his  base  and  go 
through  to  the  sea,  Grant  wired  back  to  detach  Thomas  to  look 
after  Hood  (who  was  in  command  of  the  Southern  army  in 
front  of  Sherman),  and  then  go  ahead.  Sherman  took  ninety 
thousand  of  his  army  and  started  "From  Atlanta  to  the  Sea," 
and  the  army  he  left  Thomas  was  so  much  inferior  to  Hood's 
that  there  was  nothing  for  Thomas  to  do  but  to  fall  back  until 
he  could  unite  with  the  command  at  Nashville.  Then  began  that 


HARRY  I.  THORNTOX.  209 

movement  of  Thomas"  army  with  Hood  hanging  on  his  rear 
and  seeking  the  opportunity  to  overwhehii  him. 

\\^hen  Thomas  reached  Frankhn,  two  days'  march  from 
Nashville,  he  ordered  Schofield  with  seven  thousand  men  to 
occupy  the  works  there  that  had  previously  been  constructed : 
to  keep  a  lookout  for  Hood,  and  if  he  found  that  he  was  flank- 
ing him.  to  leave  the  works  and  hurry  after  him,  but  if  Hood 
attacked  him  to  fight  him  until  night  and  then  draw  out  his 
troops  and  follow  him  to  Nashville.  Evidently  Thomas  be- 
lieved from  what  he  knew  of  Hood's  impetuous  nature  that  he 
would  try  to  crush  Schofield  and  then  his  battle  with  Thomas 
wou'd  be  much  easier,  which  would  have  been  good  general- 
ship had  Schofield  been  in  the  open  like  himself,  but  not  when 
Schofield's  army  was  splendidly  entrenched.  So  Hood  led  his 
army  through  six  distinct  assaults  with  loss  so  frightful  that  it 
was  only  a  half-hearted  army  that  he  had  left.  Thornton  told 
me  that  in  the  last  assault  General  Adams  led  his  command 
until  his  horse's  fore  feet  were  reared  upon  the  earthworks, 
when  he  and  his  horse  were  both  killed. 

Wh^n  night  came  down,  following  his  orders,  Schofield 
silently  withdrew  his  army  and  hurried  on  to  join  Thomas. 
Next  morning  the  Confederates  entered  the  deserted  works,  and 
found  there  the  body  of  General  Adams.  The  Federals  had 
gone  out  and  carried  the  body  in,  composed  the  limbs  on  a 
blanket  and  over  it  had  laid  an  officer's  costly  military  cloak. 

AMien  the  war  closed  Thornton  prepared  the  necessary 
papers  and  went  to  Washington.  He  went  to  Secretary  of 
AA'ar  Stanton's  office  next  morning  and  waited  his  turn  to  speak 
to  him.  When  the  others  were  disposed  of,  Thornton  went  to 
the  rail  which  separated  the  outer  from  the  inner  office,  and 
Stanton  asked  in  his  brusque  way  what  he  could  do  for  him. 
Thornton,  pushing  forward  his  papers,  replied:  'T  have  come, 
Air.  Secretary,  with  a  petition  for  pardon." 

Stanton  looked  down  upon  him  for  an  instant  and  then 
said :  "You  had  better  go  about  your  business.  We  are  not 
s])ending  our  time  in  pardoning  boys." 

T  suspect  that  hurt  Thornton  more  than  would  a  blow.  He 
liad  practiced  law  several  years,  been  a  member  of  the  legis'a- 


210  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

ture  of  a  great  state  and  then  had  fought  by  the  side  of  a  gen- 
eral renowned  for  his  fighting  propensities,  only  to  be  called  a 
boy  and  told  to  go  about  his  business  by  a  grim  old  secretary 
of  war. 

From  A\'ashington  he  went  to  New  York  and  watched 
the  thousands  that  thronged  the  streets,  the  ships  going  and 
coming,  and  he  told  me  he  had  never  realized  before  what  fools 
the  southern  men  had  been.  "Why,"  said  he,  "New  York 
City  alone  could  have  licked  us,  and  had  she  found  the  work 
a  little  too  robust,  she  could  in  a  month  have  imported  enough 
Irishmen  and  Germans  to  have  beaten  us  down  through  the 
sheer  force  of  numbers."  As  soon  as  he  could  he  sought  the 
west.  Reaching  San  Francisco,  his  friends  advised  him  that  all 
the  rush  was  for  Nevada,  and  he  went  there,  settling  first,  I 
think,  in  Austin  and  going  from  there  to  Hamilton.  When  he 
arrived  in  Austin  he  found  many  old  Sierra  county  friends.  The 
first  proposition  was  to  all  have  a  drink.  As  they  stood  glasses 
in  hand,  one  man  cried  out,  "Here's  to  the  south,  beaten,  but 
not  subdued."  Thornton  set  down  his  glass  and  turning  to  the 
man,  said:     "Where  in  the  south  did  you  serve?" 

"Oh,  I  was  here,"  said  the  man.- 

Then  Thornton  said :  "I  was  in  the  south,  and  I  am  sub- 
dued." 

He  formed  a  law  partnership  with  Judge  Garber,  and  the 
firm  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  foremost  in  the  state  for  sev- 
eral years.  He  was  handling  a  mining  case  in  Belmont  and  the 
principal  on  the  other  side  was  a  Frenchman  who  had  but 
a  poor  understanding  of  English.  In  his  final  argument, 
Thornton  used  the  Frenchman's  name  several  times.  A  would- 
be  funny  deputy  sheriff  sitting  near  the  Frenchman  asked  him 
if  he  understood  what  Thornton  was  saying.  He  replied  that 
his  understanding  was  imperfect,  when  the  other,  thinking 
to  have  some  fun,  told  the  Frenchman  that  he  was  making  fun 
of  him  and  intimating  that  he  was  none  too  honest.  When  the 
Frenchman  finally  understood,  he  grew  pale  and  asked  the 
deputy  if  he  would  carry  one  paper  to  Monsieur  Thornton.  The 
deputy  said  he  would,  and  the  Frenchman  went  to  a  desk  and 
WTOte  something  in  French  and  gave  it  to  the  deputy. 


HARRY  I.  THORNTON.  211 

When  Thornton  finished  his  argument  the  deputy  carried 
him  the  paper.  Thornton  read  it,  his  face  flushed  a  Httle  and 
leaning  forward,  he  penned  an  answer.  A  lawyer  friend  was 
watching  him,  and  leaning  over  him  said  :  "W^hat  is  it,  Harry?" 
Thornton  passed  him  the  Frenchman's  note.  He  read  it  and 
the  friend  said:  "Are  you  going  to  notice  it,  Harry?"  For 
answer  he  held  up  his  acceptance.  The  friend  read  it  and  then 
declared  that  it  must  not  be ;  that  Thornton  had  said  nothing  to 
provoke  a  challenge,  and  the  man  was  only  a  boor. 

To  this,  Thornton  replied :  "When  a  man  is  willing  to 
risk  his  life  for  the  honor  of  his  name,  his  social  position  is  not 
to  be  questioned.    He  is  a  man-as  good  as  any  other  man." 

It  required  the  utmost  exertion  of  the  court  and  bar,  cou- 
pled with  the  protestations  of  the  deputy  that  it  was  all  meant 
as  a  bit  of  fun,  to  make  Thornton  concede  anything.  Finally 
he  said :  "Gentlemen,  bring  me  a  formal  withdrawal  of  this 
challenge  signed  by  Monsieur,  or  the  fight  goes."  Then  the 
Frenchman  was  appealed  to,  but  he  was  as  game  as  a  bull-dog, 
and  not  until  the  judge  of  the  court  assured  him  on  his  honor 
that  there  was  not  a  word  of  disrespect  to  him  in  Thornton's 
speech,  would  he  sign  the  paper.  He  finally  did,  grinding  his 
teeth  and  swearing  low  to  himself  in  the  meantime.  Then 
he  sprang  up  and  challenged  the  deputy  to  fight  him,  "not  with 
ze  sabre,  not  with  ze  gun,  not  with  ze  cannon,  not  with  ze 
bomb,  but  with  ze  fists." 

Then  it  required  another  extended  explanation  that  the 
deputy  was  a  peace  officer,  and  while  he  held  the  office  could 
only  fight  to  keep  the  peace. 

The  Frenchman  was  still  angry  when  he  started  out  of 
town  toward  his  mine. 

Thornton  and  Garber  were  in  all  the  litigation  in  White 
Pine  county,  and  in  all  the  great  cases  in  Pioche  and  Eureka. 
After  some  years  they  removed  to  San  Francisco  and  there 
maintained  their  high  standing  as  lawyers  and  men.  But  after 
Mrs.  Thornton  died,  Harry  seemed  to  lose  his  interest  in  his 
business,  and  a  little  later  an  insidious  disease  came  upon  him. 
He  had  bought  a  farm  some  miles  out  of  Oakland  and  raised 
horses  and  flowers  upon  it.     He  bought  the  place  merely  as  a 


212  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

resting  place  when  he  wanted  to  be  quiet,  but  as  his  feebleness 
increased  he  spent  more  and  more  time  there,  and  I  believe  died 
there. 

He  was  most  gifted  and  lovable ;  most  generous  in  his 
estimates  of  his  fellow  men.  There  was  nothing  of  envy 
or  jealousy  in  his  nature ;  not  one  drop  of  cold  blood  in  his 
veins.  Such  a  nature  naturally  drew  men  to  it,  and  the  grief 
over  his  death  extended  from  cabin  to  palace  and  took  in  all 
classes  of  men. 

Except  for  the  great  war,  Harry  I.  Thornton's  name 
would  have  been  familiar  and  honored  in  every  home  on  the 
west  coast. 

A  little  anecdote  may  make  a  good  closing  for  this  sketch. 
One  day,  when  General  Sherman  was  before  Atlanta  and  Bragg 
was  in  command  of  the  Confederate  army  in  his  front.  Bragg 
sent  a  flag  of  truce  to  Sherman.  Thornton  heard  the  order 
given  and  begged  to  go  along.  The  little  company  passed 
through  the  union  lines  and  came  upon  Sherman's  headquar- 
ters. One  side  of  Sherman's  tent  was  thrown  back  and  Sher- 
man was  seen  within  bending  over  a  map  and  talking  to  a 
group  of  officers  around  him  and  gesticulating  in  his 
impetuous  way.  As  the  flag  of  truce  was  announced,  all  in 
the  tent  stood  at  attention.  The  ranking  officer  approached 
General  Sherman.  They  had  been  friends  before  the  war. 
Sherman  greeted  him  cordially  and  presented  him  to  the  offi- 
cers around  him.  Then  the  Confederate  officer  presented  those 
who  had  accompanied  him.  until  it  came  to  Thornton,  when 
Sherman  said:  "One  moment."  Looking  intently  at  Thorn- 
ton in  his  colonel's  uniform,  he  said :  'T  had  the  honor  of 
being  associated  with  you  in  the  trial  of  the  case  of  Lucas 
Turner  &  Co.  vs.  Langston's  Express  Company,  in  Downie- 
ville,  California.  The  trial  began  on  the  16th  day  of  February. 
1854,  and  lasted  four  days.  It  was  a  hot  fight,  but  we  licked 
'em.  I  am  glad  to  see  you.  Col.  Thornton."  Then  added, 
"Colonel  Harrv  L  Thornton."  Then  he  turned  to  his  officers 
and  introduced  Thornton  as  an  old  Calif«:>rnia  friend. 


"DAN  DE  OUILLE." 

HIS  real  name  was  William  Wright,  but  his  iioin  de 
pluinc  grew  to  so  much  overshadow  it  that  thou- 
sands knew  him  by  no  other  name.  Prior  to  the  war, 
the  Sacramento  Union  had  a  correspondent  who  signed  him- 
self "Ching  Foo."  He  was  an  army  officer,  but  in  time  of 
peace  wrote  to  the  Union.  He  w^as  a  fine  writer;  his  letters 
were  superbly  prepared  and  called  for  loving  remembrance 
for  years  after  he  ceased  to  write.  In  Washoe  county,  Nev., 
was  a  prevaricator  whose  genius  in  that  line  is  still  recalled 
with  admiration.  Long  after  "Ching  Foo"  had  ceased  to  write 
for  the  Union,  reference  was  made,  in  a  little  company,  to  his 
old-time  wonderful  letters.  Our  imaginative  friend  at  once 
broke  in  upon  the  conversation  in  this  strain :  "Ching  Foo  was 
the  most  intelligent  Chinaman  that  I  ever  saw.  He  cooked  for 
me  three  years  in  Calevaras  county,  California.  I  taught  him 
to  write  English." 

There  may  be  grand  liars  still  who,  when  occasion  re- 
quires, may  be  telling  that  Dan  De  Ouille  was  a  most  intelligent 
Frenchman,  and  that  it  was  under  their  care  that  he  acquired 
a  fair  knowledge  of  English.  But  Dan  was  an  American 
through  and  through.  I  believe  he  was  Ohio  born,  but  his 
home  had  been  in  Iowa  from  childhood  until  he  went  to 
Nevada. 

He  reached  there  in  the  autumn  of  '59,  I  believe,  and 
took  up  his  home  in  a  cabin  in  Silver  City.  He  was  following 
in  the  wake  of  the  Grosh  brothers,  who  either  first  found  the 
Comstock,  or  at  least  a  spur  of  it,  built  a  rude  furnace  and 
smelted  the  ore  and  then  both  died — one  in  trying  to  cross  the 
Sierras  in  winter,  and  the  other  of  sorrow  and  sickness  a  little 
later.  Dan  was  a  good  deal  of  a  geologist  and  something  of  a 
mineralogist,  and  studied  the  Comstock  from  the  surface  to 
below  the  3,000  level.  He  was  always  writing  dissertations 
on  the  lode  and  its  formation,  and  when  Mr.  Goodman  moved 
the  Enterprise  to  Virginia  City,  Dan  became  a  regular  con- 


214  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

tributor,  which  cuhiiinated  in  a  few  months  in  his  becoming 
one  of  the  staff  of  the  great  little  paper.  Then  for  more  than 
thirty  years  he  was  in  full  evidence  in  the  columns  of  that 
journal.  Without  him  the  paper  w^ould  have  been  an  automo- 
bile with  a  punctured  tire. 

He  was  dowm  in  the  mine  every  day  at  first,  and  could 
the  files  of  the  Enterprise  have  been  saved,  his  articles  taken 
out  and  arranged  wnth  the  proper  dates,  would  make  a  com- 
plete and  fascinating  history  of  the  great  lode  from  the  first. 
Moreover,  what  he  wrote,  everybody  believed  implicitly.  This 
or  that  expert  might  make  a  report,  and  men  w'ould  say,  "He 
may  have  been  mistaken."  This  or  that  owner  of  heavy  shares 
might  express  his  opinion,  and  men  would  say :  "Maybe  his 
interests  prejudice  him."    But  everyone  believed  Dan. 

But  his  work  was  not  confined  to  the  mines.  It  cov- 
ered everything ;  he  was  a  mining  reporter,  a  local  reporter, 
and  when,  late  at  night,  his  regular  work  was  finished,  he  would 
write  away  until  after  daylight  on  some  droll  story  or  some 
scientific  theme. 

He  had  a  quaint  irony  through  which  he  could  make  fun 
of  his  fellow  man's  idiosyncracies,  which  everyone  would  rec- 
ognize at  a  glance,  but  he  never  offended  anyone. 

Daggett,  with  his  intellectual  cleaver,  would  chop  a  man 
to  pieces.  Mark  Twain,  with  his  droll  humor,  would  lead 
his  victim  up  to  the  shambles  he  had  in  waiting  for  him,  and 
the  unconscious  creature  would  never  suspect  what  was  going 
to  happen  until  the  ax  fell. 

But  Dan  had  a  softer  way.  The  intended  victim  would 
know  all  the  time  after  the  first  ten  lines  that  he  was  going  to 
be  sacrificed,  but  he  was  under  a  spell,  enjoyed  the  process,  and 
laughed  after  he  w^as  downed.  Dan  was  in  close  rapport  with 
the  Indians  and  Chinese,  and  they  all  brought  their  troubles 
to  him.  Yan  Sing  came  to  him  one  day  and  said :  "Mr.  Quille, 
you  sabbie!  Hong  Lung  he  die  las  week.  We  fix  him  up  all 
lite,  fine  coffin,  hire  band,  plenty  music,  plenty  yellow  paper, 
w^ell  we  bellie  him  all  lightie,  but  he  come  back  first  nightie,  say 
he  no  all  lite.  He  came  nex  night,  say  he  no  all  lite,  he  come 
Slaterday  night  and  say,  'What  the  h — 1 !    Me  no  all  lite.' 


"DAN  DE  QUILLE."  215 

"Yesterday  we  dig  him  up,  open  boxie,  what  you  thinkie? 
One  leg  pulhe  up  so  (bending  his  knee).  We  pushee  leggie 
down,  make  um  straight,  nail  up  box,  bellie  him  again.  He 
no  come  last  nightie." 

Dan  was  married,  and  a  baby  girl  was  born  to  him  before 
he  left  Iowa  for  the  far  west.  When  old  enough  this  little  girl 
began  to  write  him  letters.  They  were  a  crown  of  glory  to 
Dan  and  the  writer  of  them  was  Dan's  divinity,  the  one  thing 
that  kept  his  heart  warm  and  filled  with  a  celestial  light. 

He  was  drinking  beer  with  Steve  Gillis  one  night  in  the 
Fredericksburg  brewery,  when  he  broke  out  and  delivered  a 
eulogy  on  this  little  girl  back  in  Iowa.  Gillis  listened  and 
then  said:  "Dan,  I  have  been  looking  for  just  such  a  girl  as 
that.     Bring  her  out  here  and  I  will  marry  her." 

Dan's  face  grew  savage  in  a  moment.  Bringing  his  first 
down  with  a  resounding  whack  upon  the  table,  he  exclaimed : 
"No,  sir;  no,  sir;  no  son  of  a  gun  that  drinks  beer  can  ever  look 
at  that  girl,  much  less  marry  her." 

He  wrote  up  a  plausible  story,  taking  as  a  starter  the 
fact  that  C  street,  Virginia  City,  was  exactly  the  same  altitude 
as  the  surface  of  Lake  Tahoe,  thirty  miles  away  in  the  Sierras. 
He  explained  that  the  excessive  water  in  the  Comstock  was 
probably  due  to  an  underground  channel  from  the  lake,  coming 
that  long  way  under  the  mountains  and  under  Washoe  valley, 
then  under  Mount  Davidson  in  the  range  in  which  the  Com- 
stock is  located,  and  filling  the  Comstock  fissure  to  the  sur- 
face: and  all  that  kept  it  from  overflowing  was  that  the  surface 
of  the  lake  was  at  the  same  altitude  as  the  croppings  of  the 
Comstock :  and  instead  of  favoring  the  Sutro  tunnel  to  drain 
the  lode,  he  suggested  that  shafts  should  be  sunk  in  Washoe 
valley  and  drifts  run,  until  the  underground  channel  was  found; 
then  plug  that  and,  of  course,  when  the  Comstock  was  once 
pumped  out  there  would  be  no  more  trouble  from  water. 

His  solar  armor  story  was  one  of  his  best  ones.  It  was 
an  invention  intended  to  neutralize  the  excessive  heat  of  the 
summer.  It  was  called  "a  solar  armor."  It  was  a  suit  of  India 
rubber  that  a  man  could  put  on,  but  within  it  was  a  compact 
air  compressor  attached  to  which  was  a  pocket  battery  to  run 


216  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

it.  When  the  wearer  found  it  was  growing  too  warm,  he  had 
but  to  touch  a  button  to  set  the  compressor  going,  and  when 
sufficiently  cooled,  he  could  touch  another  button  and  shut  off 
the  power. 

At  last,  according  to  Dan.  when  the  inventor  got  all  ready, 
he  put  on  the  armor  and  started  across  Death  valley  one  after- 
noon when  the  thermometer  marked  117  degrees  in  the  shade, 
and  went  out  of  sight  in  the  sun.  He  did  not  return,  and  the 
next  morning  an  exploring  party  started  out  to  try  to  find 
traces  of  him.  Out  four  or  five  miles  in  the  desert  they  found 
the  man's  body.  He  had  started  the  apparatus  evidently,  but 
could  not  stop  it,  and  it  had  frozen  him  to  death.  The  machine 
was  still  running  when  the  body  was  found,  and  an  icicle 
eighteen  inches  long  was  pendant  from  the  nose  of  the  dead 
man. 

About  a  month  after  the  story  was  published  Dan  received 
a  London  Times  one  morning  containing  a  marked  article  that 
filled  two  or  three  columns  of  that  ponderous  publication. 

Some  writer  had  read  his  article,  accepted  it  as  true,  en- 
dorsed the  principle  and  elaborated  upon  the  advantages  which 
would  come  of  it,  could  the  government  see  its  way  clear  to 
supply  the  British  soldiers  in  India  and  other  hot  countries  with 
the  armor.  Dan  read  it  through,  then  with  a  blue  pencil  drew 
a  line  around  the  article  and  connected  the  two  ends  with  a 
pencil  sketch  of  a  hoodlum,  looking  at  some  far  away  object. 
and  the  figure  had  his  right  thumb  to  his  nose  with  his  fingers 
wiggling  He  put  the  paper  in  a  wrapper  and  directed  it  to  the 
Scientific  Writer,  care  of  the  Times,  London.  England.  But 
all  that  day  he  wore  such  a  look  as  Dr.  Holmes  must  have 
worn  while  writing  that  poem  in  which  he  promised  never  more 
to  "write  as  funny  as  I  can." 

His  resourcefulness  in  a  newspaper  office  was  wonderful. 
He  could  do  two  or  three  men's  work  when  necessary :  his  in- 
dustry was  untiring  and  his  brain  exhaustless. 

He  took  one  summer  off  and  wrote  his  book,  "The  Great 
Bonanza,"  which  is  a  true  story  of  the  Comstock  up  to  1875. 
He  was  tall  and  slim,  and  as  he  grew  older  he  seemed  to 
grow  more  spare  and  tall,  and  a  feebleness  came  upon  him 


"DAK    DE   OUILLE."  217 

which  finally  left  him  no  strength  to  work.  He  went  back  to 
his  friends  in  Iowa  and  as  the  winter  came  on  the  influenza 
which  came  that  winter  across  the  Atlantic  prostrated  him. 
He  recovered  from  the  disease,  but  he  had  no  strength  to  rally 
and  after  a  few  weeks  the  wornout  machinery  ran  dow^n  and 
stopped. 

He  was  the  most  wnnsome  (^f  men;  no  man  was  ever  more 
honest  or  conscientious;  he  was  gifted  in  a  hundred  ways;  he 
was  one  of  the  most  efficient  and  valuable  men  that  ever  wore 
out  his  life  in  a  newspaper  office,  and  no  one  who  knew  him 
well  has  ever  ceased  grieving  for  him. 

He  was  above  both  bribes  or  bluffs  ;  no  man  could  ever  cor- 
rupt him;  no  man  could  scare  him.  He  made  no  pretentions, 
but  every  day  he  followed  his  duty  as  God  gave  him  to  see  it. 
and  along  its  path,  though  there  were  sometimes  thorns  and 
sharp  rocks  under  his  feet,  he  never  stopped  unless  to  here  and 
there  plant  a  flower  or  a  shade  tree. 

He  did  not  need  any  credentials  when  his  soul  went  above. 
The  pearly  gates  swung  back  merely  at  the  mention  of  his  name, 
and  I  fancy  that  the  breeze  that  swept  over  Summer  Land  in 
that  hour,  caused  every  harp-string  to  thrill  with  soft  ?eolian 
notes  in  welcome  to  Dan. 


16 


COLONEL  ROBERT  H.  TAYLOR. 

HE  would  have  been  a  great  statesman  had  not  nature 
given  him  so  many  splendid  gifts  to  lure  him  from  a 
settled  and  high  purpose.  Then  in  a  rollicking  mood, 
Bacchus  must  have  stooped  and  kissed  his  baby  lips  while  he 
was  yet  in  his  cradle.  He  was  just  about  the  height  and  size 
of  James  G.  Blaine,  quite  as  bright,  but  far  more  versatile. 

He  was  born  and  reared,  educated,  and  studied  law  in 
New  York  City.  He  married  into  a  stately  family  there — one 
of  the  old  "400,"  in  which  no  one  could  gain  recognition  unless 
his  credentials  were  of  the  highest.  Had  he  remained  I 
am  sure  that  he  would  have  divided  honors  with  the  very  high- 
est, for  his  equipment  was  complete;  he  was  perfect  physically 
and  his  mind  was  superb.  After  a  few  years  his  wife  died,  leav- 
ing a  boy  perhaps  ten  years  old.  Then  came  the  news  of  the 
gold  discoveries  in  the  west,  and  he,  with  some  others,  char- 
tered or  bought  a  bark,  and  after  a  very  long  voyage,  reached 
San  Francisco.  Marysville  had  just  been  "located,"  and  he 
went  there  to  begin  the  practice  of  his  profession.  While 
erratic  in  a  thousand  ways  he  w^as  as  methodical  and  auto- 
matic as  a  piece  of  machinery.  No  lawyer  ever  drew  up 
the  papers  in  a  case  with  more  care.  They  are  models  in  every 
court  in  which  he  ever  practiced.  They  were  perfect  as  legal 
documents,  but  in  addition  there  was  a  style  about  them  which 
few  lawyers  could  in  the  least  imitate,  for  while  the  strict  legal 
phraseology  was  closely  clung  to,  a  word  here  and  there  gave 
them  a  rhythm  which  was  as  though  Jove,  while  framing  a 
decree,  was  humming  low  to  himself  a  strain  from  one  of 
Apollo's  songs,  which  mellowed  the  irrevocable  edict.  And 
still  he  was  a  natural  poet.  When  any  public  occasion  required 
it.  he  was  on  hand  with  a  poem,  or  a  dissertation  in  prose 
which  only  required  to  have  its  measure  changed  to  make  it  a 
poem.  Indeed,  in  Marysville,  he  practically  edited  a  newspaper 
for  a  long  time.  Moreover,  he  was  as  good  an  actor  as  he  was 
poet  or  lawyer,  and  often  appeared  to  help  out  an  amateur  play. 


COLONEL  ROBERT  H.  TAYLOR.      219 

Later,  in  Virginia  City,  he  played  lago  to  Lawrence  Bar- 
rett's Othello,  and  divided  the  honors  with  Barrett.  From 
Marysville  he  moved  to  Downieville  and  a  little  later  was 
elected  district  judge  and  held  the  office  for  years  until  he  vol- 
untarily gave  it  up  to  remove  to  Virginia  City.  He  had  not 
been  long  in  Downieville  until  news  reached  him  that  his  boy 
in  New  York  had  been  killed  by  a  fall  from  a  tree.  He  was 
never  quite  the  same  after  that.  He  had  the  same  devotion  to 
duty ;  the  same  cordial  bearing,  the  same  warm-hearted  gener- 
osity ;  but  there  was  an  indefinable  change.  He  was  at  night 
more  reckless  in  throwing  off  the  cares  of  the  day ;  his  dreams 
for  a  high  fortune  and  great  name  seemed  to  begin  to  fade 
away,  and  he  cared  less  for  the  approval  or  at  least  the  applause 
of  his  fellow  men.  But  as  a  judge  he  filled  every  requirement. 
We  never  heard  a  complaint  of  his  rulings,  never  heard  of  any 
man  who  ever  cast  a  reflection  on  his  absolute  integrity  He 
w^as  one  of  the  most  perfect  presiding  officers  that  we  ever  saw% 
either  on  the  bench  or  in  a  convention  when  the  disposition 
w"as  sometimes  to  make  things  stormy. 

He  never  became  confused,  never  lost  his  balance,  nor  his 
temper,  and  with  his  superb  and  perfectly  practiced  and  disci- 
plined voice,  his  rulings  had  a  cadence  and  power  which  w^ere 
never  appealed  from.  He  was  a  wonderful  elocutionist.  He 
could  read  a  funeral  service  in  a  way  to  give  the  listener  a  feel- 
ing as  though  while  he  read  an  unseen  organ  was  accom- 
panying him. 

As  age  came  on  he  grew  more  dignified  and  more  reck- 
less. Although  I  never  heard  of  his  quarreling,  he  had  a  self- 
respect  which  never  failed  him.  A  man  had  been  saying  some 
mean  things  about  him.  He  paid  no  attention  to  it,  but  one 
morning  the  same  man  approached  smiling  and  with  a  "Good 
morning,  Colonel,"  held  out  his  hand.  Taylor  looked  at  him 
an  instant,  then  turning  away  said,  "Excuse  me;  I  have  just 
washed  my  hands." 

I  returned  to  Virginia  City  after  an  absence  of  some  weeks 
and  met  the  colonel  a  little  after  dark.  We  were  near  one  of 
the  famous  saloons  of  those  days,  and  the  colonel  insisted  that 
we  must  take  something.    While  standing  at  the  bar,  a  German 


220  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

brass  band,  a  new  organization,  began  playing  in  front  of  the 
saloon. 

The  colonel  explained :  "It  is  a  new  band  and  the  mem- 
bers need  encouragement.  Excuse  me  for  one  minute."  He 
made  a  dash  for  the  leader  and  I  went  my  way. 

I  met  him  the  next  afternoon  and  asked  him  how  he  got 
along  with  his  German  friends  the  previous  night. 

He  smiled  and  said :  "Our  German-American  fellow  citi- 
zens are  hard  gentlemen  to  throw  down.  It  took  me  until  2 
a.  m.  to  do  it." 

I  met  him  late  one  night  with  his  partner  Judge  Camp- 
bell, and  Judge  Hardy.  All  had  been  drinking  a  good  deal. 
Campbell  and  Hardy  were  considerably  intoxicated.  Taylor  had 
drunk  as  often  as  the  others,  but  was  fully  himself.  The  propo- 
sition was  for  another  drink,  and  Hardy  insisted  that  Taylor 
should  sing  again,  "If  I  Had  But  a  Thousand  a  Year."  Taylor 
was  as  good  a  singer  as  he  w^as  elocutionist;  but  he  had  im- 
portant business  early  on  the  morrow  and  said  that  he  was 
going  home. 

In  the  meantime,  he  had  managed  to  whisper  to  me : 
"Hardy  is  getting  his  incipient  whoop  on ;  we  must  get  him 
home,  for  when  real  drunk  he  becomes  mean  and  quarrelsome." 
After  a  little  further  parley  we  started  Hardy  and  Campbell 
in  front  arm  in  arm  walking  with  unsteady  steps ;  Taylor  and 
myself  in  the  rear. 

It  was  one  of  those  still,  delicious  moonlight  nights  which 
Virginia  City  is  given  to  in  the  dog  days. 

At  the  time  the  Civil  war  had  just  closed ;  all  three.  Taylor, 
Campbell  and  Hardy,  were  Democrats.  Hardy  a  fierce  South- 
ern Democrat,  a  great  friend  of  Terry,  Gwin  and  the  others  of 
that  school.  But  when  the  walk  started.  Campbell  struck  up 
"John  Brown's  Body  Lies  A-mouldering  in  the  Grave."  and 
Hardy  joined  him.  We  passed  from  C  street  up  Union  street 
to  B,  and  then  south  on  B  street. 

At  one  of  the  big  livery  stables  on  B  street  the  stable 
boys  had  a  pet  black  sheep  named  Joe.  Joe  was  as  well  known 
as  the  mayor  of  the  city.  He  had  some  pretty  bad  habits.  He 
was  fond  of  tobacco  and  especially  fond  of  beer.    On  this  night 


COLONEL  ROBERT  H.  TAYLOR.      221 

Joe  was  lying"  on  the  outer  edge  of  the  sidewalk  enjoying  him- 
self. Just  as  Campbell  and  Hardy  came  opposite  him,  they 
reached  the  stanza,  "John  Brown's  pet  lambs  will  meet  him  on 
the  way,"  when  Joe  arose  and  gave  a  responsive  "Bah."  The 
singers  were  too  much  occupied  to  notice  the  aptness  of 
Joe's  response,  but  Taylor,  with  a  "Did  you  hear  that?"  sat 
down  on  the  curb  of  the  walk  with  his  feet  in  the  gutter  in  a 
perfect  hysteria  of  laughter.  The  judges  turned  up  Taylor 
street  toward  A,  where  they  both  resided.  I  went  with  Taylor 
to  his  gate  and  left  him.  Next  morning  at  10  a.  m.  he  was  in 
court,  and  from  his  words  and  bearing  no  one  would  ever  have 
discovered  that  a  few  hours  before  he  had  been  sitting  on  the 
edge  of  the  sidewalk  with  his  feet  in  the  gutter  and  screaming 
with  laughter  over  a  brief  remark  made  by  a  black  sheep. 

He  worked  two  years  on  a  case  in  which  he  had  a  great 
fortune  pending.  It  was  decided  against  him  in  a  territorial 
court.  He  told  me  that  all  the  law  and  all  the  facts  were  in  his 
favor ;  other  great  lawyers  said  the  same,  but  he  would  not 
say  a  harsh  word  of  the  judge.  He  had  been  for  several  years 
a  judge  himself,  but  had  "the  recall"  been  possible  in  those 
days,  I  suspect  he  would  have  voted  for  it.  He  worked  on,  but 
his  wild  nights  became  more  frequent,  and  the  wrong  side  of 
stocks  had  something  to  do  with  it,  for  he  left  Virginia  City 
fortuneless  and  passed  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

I  can  but  think  that  had  he  remained  in  New  York,  he 
would  have  made  a  name  as  great  as  Samuel  J.  Tilden  or  Ros- 
coe  Conkling.  He  had  all  their  high  attributes  and  other 
winsome  qualities  that  neither  possessed,  but  lacked  one 
thing,  which  was  fixedness  of  purpose.  There  was  so  much  of 
the  thoroughbred  in  him  that  once  in  a  while  if  he  could  not  get 
proper  exercise  he  would  kick  a  side  out  of  his  own  stable ; 
then  with  his  strength  and  power  he  was  by  nature  so  genial 
and  so  bright  that  every  Bohemian  sought  him  out.  He  was 
the  happiest  toastmaster  that  ever  presided  at  a  banquet ;  as 
orator  of  the  day,  no  matter  what  the  occasion,  he  was  always 
perfect;  if  a  role  needed  filling  at  the  theatre,  he  could  assume 
it  with  perfect  grace,  and  could  melt  an  audience  to  tears  just 


222  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

by  the  way  he  read  a  burial  service.  He  should  have  made 
for  himself  a  great  name,  and  would,  had  he  been  denied  half 
his  winsome  gifts,  or  had  his  lot  been  cast  where  only  steady 
business  was  the  rule  and  where  the  highest  society  was  exact- 
ing in  its  requirements. 

He  was  the  soul  of  honor ;  moreover,  he  was  a  devout 
Christian.  He  told  me  once  that  Archbishop  McCloskey  of 
New  York  was  the  greatest  and  most  winsome  man  he  had 
ever  met.  Under  his  eye  what  might  not  have  been  his  fame  ? 
Had  he  remained  in  Sierra  county,  he  would  have  been  judge 
for  life  and  held  with  the  highest.  But  in  Virginia  City  in  its 
palmy  days,  there  were  no  brakes  on  men  and  every  boiler 
carried  double  pressure. 

R.  H.  Taylor  was  one  of  the  truest  and  best  of  friends. 
and  the  keenest  regret  that  followed  him  to  his  grave  was  that 
he  was  not  a  more  exacting  friend  of  himself. 


THE  OLD  STAGE  DRIVERS. 

MOHAMMED  was  a  camel  driver,  but  he  was  not  like 
other  camel  drivers.  The  stage  drivers  in  the  old 
California  and  Nevada  clays  were  not  like  other  stage 
drivers.  Marysville,  California,  was  headquarters  for  the 
California  Stage  Company,  and  it  was  there  that  staging  was 
seen  at  its  fulness. 

As  soon  as  it  was  light  on  those  delicious  mornings,  the 
criers  began — one  can  hear  them  still, — "Empire  Ranch,  Rough 
and  Ready,  Grass  Valley  and  Nevada"  was  the  first  cry.  Then 
came  "Oregon  Ranch,  Camptonville,  Downieville."  Then 
"Oroville,  Forbestown  and  Moore's  Flat."  Then  "Tehama,  Red 
Bluff,  Shasta  and  Yreka,"  and  at  steady  intervals  in  a  glorified 
baritone  rang  out  "Sacramento,  Sacramento." 

Then,  from  the  stables  would  come  the  stages.  The  horses 
had  been  driven  across  the  plains,  turned  out  on  their  arrival 
and  by  the  next  spring  they  had  grown  a  hand  in  height,  and 
when  taken  up,  fed  grain  and  groomed,  they  were  most  beau- 
tiful. 

The  great  Troy  coaches  for  twenty-seven  passengers  and 
drawn  by  eight  horses,  had  the  right-of-way.  At  first  they 
were  driven  on  alternate  days  by  "Big  John"  and  "Big  Jake." 
Their  real  names  were  John  Littlefield  and  Jacob  Putnam. 
Later  Oscar  Ross  was  put  upon  that  line,  but  one  morning  he 
ran  his  coach  into  an  opposition  coach  and  knocked  it  to  pieces, 
and  a  passenger  on  the  opposition  coach,  as  soon  as  he  could 
extricate  himself  from  the  wreck,  fired  a  full  charge  of  bird 
shot,  at  close  range,  into  Oscar's  side  and  he  died  three  days 
later.  "Big  John"  became  dissipated  and  the  company  took 
him  from  the  Sacramento  route  and  gave  him  one  of  the  Camp- 
tonville coaches,  which  were  four-horse  coaches.  After  a  few 
days  he  made  a  night  with  the  boys  in  Camptonville.  He  was 
a  little  "How-came-you-so"  when  he  mounted  the  box  next 
morning,  and.  going  down  the  Goodyear  hill  grade,  rolled  his 
coach  over,  broke  the  rail  from  the  top  of  it,  bruised  badly  a 


224  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Chinese  passenger,  but  managed  to  get  to  Marysville.  He 
had  the  coach  repaired  at  his  own  expense  and  next  morning 
(h-ove  up  in  front  of  the  stage  office.  While  waiting  for  the 
time  to  start,  a  clerk  came  out  of  the  office  and,  walking  up  to 
the  coach,  said:  "Mr.  Littlefield,  President  Hayworth  has 
instructed  me  to  inform  you  that  your  salary  has  stopped." 

Littlefield  began  to  wind  the  reins  around  the  brake  bar, 
and  in  a  soft  voice  which  grew  harsher  as  he  went  on,  said : 
"My  compliments  to  President  Hayw'orth,  and  kindly  say  to 
him  that  while  I  hate  to  disappoint  him,  if  what  you  have  just 
said  is  true,  I'll  be  d — d  if  I  drive!" 

Robert  Robins  and  his  twin  brother  Dan  drove  the  Shasta 
stages,  leaving  Marysville  on  alternate  days.  They  were 
known  as  "Curly  Bob"  and  "Curly  Dan,"  because  of  their 
curly  hair.  As  the  railroad  stretched  its  way  up  toward  Te- 
hama and  Red  Blufif,  and  staging  declined,  they  came  to  this 
side  of  the  Sierras  and  drove  on  the  Overland  and  branch  lines. 
They  were  fine  looking  men  and  great  drivers,  and  had  none 
of  the  wdld  strata  in  them  which  is  so  common  in  men  of  their 
calling.  Rob  died  some  years  ago  in  Idaho,  and  Dan  in  Salt 
Lake  City  a  few  months  ago. 

Baldy  Green  was  another  famous  whip.  He  was  an  old- 
time  California  driver  and  then  for  years  handled  the  ribbons 
on  the  Overland  between  Virginia  City  and  Austin. 

The  last  I  heard  of  him  he  was  a  justice  of  the  peace  in 
Humboldt  county.  His  knowledge  of  law^  was  limited,  but 
he  surely  had  a  great  deal  of  horse  sense.  He  must  have  been 
of  the  Sancho  Panza  order  of  magistrates. 

Of  course  half  of  the  w^orld  has  heard  of  Hank  ]\Ionk. 
Before  there  w^as  any  grade  over  the  Sierras  and  before  the 
finding  of  the  Comstock,  Monk  drove  a  stage  between  Genoa 
and  Placerville.  It  was  there  that  Horace  Greeley  encoun- 
tered him  and  the  famous  story  has  been  told  with  more  vari- 
ations than  are  used  when  "Home,  Sw'eet  Home"  is  played  on 
the  piano  by. an  amateur.  There  was  not  much  to  it  except 
that  Greeley  grew  impatient  going  up  the  mountains  from  the 
Genoa  side  and  sharply  told  Monk  that  he  w^as  put  down  for 
a  lecture  in  Placerville  that  night.     Monk  with  his  drawl  told 


THE  OLD  STAGE  DRIVER.  225 

liini  to  keep  his  seat,  that  he  would  have  him  there  on  time. 
Reaching  the  summit.  Monk  shook  out  his  team  and  Mr.  Gree- 
ley's head  collided  with  the  top  of  the  coach  at  short  intervals, 
which  caused  him  to  cry  out  to  go  slower,  but  Monk's  only 
reply  was :  "Keep  your  seat,  Mr.  Greeley ;  I  will  have  you 
there  on  time." 

Mv.  Greeley  did  not  know  it,  but  the  man  on  the  box 
was  about  the  most  superb  reinsman  in  the  world.  His  secret 
was  his  exact  calculation.  XA'ith  every  ribbon  apparently  loose, 
he  would  turn  a  running  team  on  a  narrow  street,  and  bring 
them  to  a  full  stop  at  exactly  the  right  point. 

A  friend  of  mine  came  down  one  evening  with  Monk  from 
Glenbrook  on  Lake  Tahoe,  to  Carson  City,  fourteen  miles,  in 
fortv-five  minutes.  The  friend  asked  him  if  he  ever  rolled  a 
stage  over  on  that  route,  for  the  horses  were  at  full  gallop  half 
the  time.  "Oh,  no,"  was  the  reply,  "when  you  strike  a  level 
grade  ride  your  brake  and  let  the  stock  go ;  but  when  you 
turn  a  curve,  take  off  your  brake  and  give  the  wheels  full  play, 
because  to  ride  a  brake  around  a  curve  when  going  lively  might 
make  you  trouble." 

Monk  had  a  superior  education  and  was  famous  for  droll 
expressions.  I  was  riding  beside  him  once  when,  nearing  a 
wayside  hotel,  a  man  with  overcoat  on  arm  came  running- 
out  of  the  hotel  to  the  coach.  Monk  pulled  up  his  team,  when 
the  man  said:    "Monk,  have  you  seen  Bill  lately?" 

"Yes,  saw  him  yesterday;  he's  coming  down  with  me  to- 
morrow," was  the  reply. 

The  man  said  he  was  glad,  turned  and  walked  back  to  the 
hotel,  and  Monk,  easing  up  on  the  reins,  the  team  trotted  on. 
\^' hen  we  had  gone  a  few  rods.  Monk  said :  "I  wonder  what 
Bill  that  yahoo  meant?" 

"What  Bill  did  you  mean?"  I  asked. 

"I  meant  the  way-bill,"  said  Monk. 

Mrs. of  Virginia  City  went  up  to  Tahoe  in  a 

carriage  one  day  for  a  few  weeks'  rest  in  the  hot  weather. 
She  left  her  trunk — a  skyscraper — to  be  sent  next  day  by 
coacli.  When  Monk  reached  the  hotel  at  the  lake,  the  lady,  a 
fidgety  little  woman,  was  on  the  upper  piazza  looking  for  her 


226  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

trunk.  It  was  not  there,  and,  knowing  Monk  wxll,  she  called 
to  him  and  asked  where  it  was. 

"They  were  sawing  it  in  two  when  I  left,"  he  replied.  "I 
will  bring  half  of  it  tomorrow  and  the  other  half  next  day."' 

The  lady  rushed  to  her  room  and  cried  out  to  her  hus- 
band :  "They  are  sawing  my  trunk  in  two  in  Carson  and  all 
my  good  clothes  are  in  that  trunk:  all  my  party  dresses." 

"Oh,  well,"  said  the  husband,  "that  will  be  all  right;  you 
are  not  more  than  half  dressed  anyway  when  you  go  to  a 
party." 

At  last,  after  many  years.  Monk  tipped  a  stage  over.  He 
never  recovered  from  the  humiliation  of  it,  and  died  a  few 
months  later. 

But  when  the  Comstock  was  discovered,  stages  and  stage 
drivers  reached  perfection.  The  coaches  were  beautiful,  the 
horses  magnificent,  covered  with  ivory  rings,  tassels  on  their 
head  stalls,  and  trappings  generally  as  splendid  as  could  be 
invented.  There  were  two  rival  lines :  the  California  Stage 
Company's  line  from  Dutch  Flat  via  Donner  Lake  to  Virginia 
City  and  Wells  Fargo  &  Company's  pioneer  line  from  Placer- 
ville  via  Genoa  and  Carson  City  to  Virginia  City.  The  drivers 
were  the  finest  that  could  be  found.  Among  these  were  John 
Burnett,  whose  sobriquet  was  "Sage  Brush ;"  Wm.  Gephardt, 
"Curly  Bill ;"  Charlie  Livermore,  and  others. 

"Sage  Brush"  was  a  wonder  with  the  reins.  He  was 
diiving  for  Jack  Gilmer  in  Nebraska  and  Dakota  when  in  a 
quarrel  one  night  he  killed  or  desperately  wounded  a  man. 
The  difficulty  was  fixed  up  some  way,  but  he  thought  best  to 
leave  that  region,  and  finally  reached  Sacramento.  He  was  a 
small  man  and  was  much  travel  worn,  but  he  walked  into  the 
stage  ofifice  then  in  charge  of  Grant  Israel  and  asked  if  he 
needed  a  stage  driver. 

Israel  had  just  quarreled  with  a  recalcitrant  driver  and 
discharged  him,  and  was  in  no  good  humor.  Turning  fiercely 
upon  Sage  Brush,  he  said:  "A  stage  driver?  Did  you  ever 
drive  a  stage?"  Sage  Brush  had  a  drawl  like  Mark  Twain  and 
he  answered,  "A  little."  "Ever  drive  two  horses?"  was  Grant's 
next  question.     "Sometimes,"  said  Sage  Brush.     "Ever  drive 


I 


THE  OLD  STAGE  DRIVERS.  227 

four?"  asked  Israel.  "Occasionally,"  was  the  answer.  "Ever 
drive  six?"  asked  Grant  fiercely.  "Oh,  yes,  once  in  a  while," 
said  Sage  Brush.  "When  can  you  go  to  work?"  asked  Israel. 
"Whenever  you  like,"  was  the  answer.  "Do  you  know  where 
the  stage  barns  are?"  was  Israel's  next  question.  Sage  Brush 
said  he  did. 

"Well,"  said  Israel,  "go  there  tomorrow  morning  at  six 
o'clock  and  tell  the  men  you  are  to  have  the  six  bays  for  the 
Placerville  route.  Come  down  the  street  that  the  barn  is  on 
to  a  block  below  this,  then  turn  to  the  left  a  block,  then  turn 
into  this  street  and  bring  the  coach  to  this  door!"  "All  right," 
said  Sage  Brush,  and  turned  to  the  door.  But  Israel  hailed 
him  and,  calling  him  back,  said :  "I  suppose  you  are  broke ; 
take  this,"  extending  a  twenty-dollar  gold  piece,  "and  get 
yourself  a  square  meal !" 

"No,  thanks,"  said  Sage  Brush.  "I  have  plenty  of  money. 
I  only  drive  stage  for  exercise,"  and  went  out. 

Then  the  clerks  in  chorus  said:  "Mr.  Israel,  you  surely 
are  not  going  to  give  that  team  to  that  emigrant!  They  will 
kill  him  before  he  ever  reaches  this  office." 

"Suppose  they  do?  You  don't  know  how  much  I  would 
give  to  see  a  stage  driver  killed.  I  have  felt  that  way  for  a 
week." 

Israel  was  out  on  time  next  morning  to  see  the  tenderfoot 
bring  down  the  team;  so  were  the  clerks.  He  did  not  come 
down  the  back  street,  but  down  the  street  on  which  the  office 
was  situated,  only  on  the  other  side,  and  the  team  was  trotting 
along  gently  enough,  all  their  pranks  seemingly  put  aside. 
When  a  little  below  the  office,  the  driver  seemed  to  rouse  him- 
self. There  was  a  swift  tightening  of  the  reins,  a  sharp  crack 
of  the  whip,  the  leaders  came  around  on  a  run,  the  swings  on 
a  gallop,  the  wheelers  on  a  fast  trot ;  at  just  the  right  moment 
all  the  reins  were  pulled  taut,  the  driver's  toe  touched  the 
brake,  from  the  driver's  lips  came  a  low  "ehe,"  and  the  team 

stood  still.     "A  stage  driver  at  last,  by ,"  cried  Israel,  and 

the  clerks  said,  "You  bet." 

The  stable  boys  said  that  before  the  new  driver  mounted 
the  box,  he  inquired  the  name  of  each  horse,  then  went  to  each 


228  AS  I  REME^IBER  THEM. 

one,  called  him  by  name,  rubbed  his  nose  a  minute,  talking  low 
to  him,  and  "hoodooed  the  whole  bunch.'"  "Sage  Brush" 
drove  the  first  coach  on  the  Donner  Eake  route  out  of  Virginia 
City  every  night,  and  "Curly  Bill"  the  second.  "Curly  Bill" 
was  not  nearly  so  expert  a  reinsman  as  was  "Sage  Brush,"  but 
was  a  tremendously  powerful  man.  One  day  a  lady  in  his 
coach  called  to  him  asking  protection  from  a  passenger.  The 
passenger  happened  to  be  a  distinguished  army  officer  who  had 
made  a  great  name  in  the  Civil  war.  But  that  day  he  was  in 
his  cups,  and  in  a  vicious  mood.  Curly  Bill  got  off  the  box, 
and,  going  to  the  stage  door,  said  to  him  that  one  wearing  the 
uniform  he  had  on  should  respect  it  too  much  to  make  a  woman 
afraid.  The  officer  made  an  insulting  reply,  whereupon  "Curly 
Bill"  reached  in.  took  him  by  the  collar  and  hauled  him  out. 
bringing  the  door  of  the  coach  with  him.  The  officer  was 
appalled  by  the  terrible  strength  of  the  driver,  appalled  and 
sobered.  He  apologized  to  "Curly  Bill"  and  to  the  lady,  and 
for  the  rest  of  the  journey  was  "childlike  and  bland." 

The  teams  driven  in  and  out  of  Virginia  City  were  mar- 
^•els.  but  when  the  climbing  of  the  Sierras  began,  less  valu- 
a1)le  horses  were  used.  One  day  at  Hunter's  Station  on  the 
Truckee,  Spaulding.  superintendent  of  the  road,  asked  "Curly 
Bill"  if  he  would  not  for  a  few  days  exchange  his  team  going 
west  from  there  for  that  of  "Sage  Brush."  At  this  "Curly 
Bill"  demurred,  saying  that  he  had  taken  pains  with  his  team, 
that  they  traveled  together  like  clock  work,  and  he  did  not 
want  to  give  them  up.  Then  Spaulding  said  :  "But  that  team 
of  Sage  Brush's  are  big  half-breeds,  wild  as  Zebras  and  a  bit 
vicious  withal,  and  'Sage  Brush'  is  afraid  that  some  day  when 
he  has  a  big  load  of  passengers  on  the  grade  something  will 
happen  and  he  will  have  a  spill." 

"Oh.  that  is  different !"  said  Bill.  "Give  me  the  right-of- 
wav  and  I  will  try  them."  The  next  day  the  passengers  were 
seated  in  the  coach  and  Bill  was  on  the  box  when  the  "devils" 
were  brought  out.  It  required  two  men  to  each  horse  to  hook 
them  to  the  stage,  then  the  reins  were  passed  to  Bill,  and  he 
nodded  to  let  them  go.  They  all  sprang  into  a  run.  over  the 
bridge  thev  flew  and  up  the  road  for  a  mile,  when  Bill  said  to 


THE  OLD  STAGE  DRIVERS.  229 

a  man  beside  him:  'T  wonder  if  they  are  real  game."  With 
that  he  gathered  the  reins,  touched  his  foot  to  the  brake,  and 
aU  six  went  up  into  the  air  as  though  they  had  struck  a  stone 
wah.  "Why,  they're  dunghihs,"  said  Bill,  and,  taking  his 
whip,  he  lashed  them  for  a  mile,  then  threw  them  up  into  the 
air  again,  and  thus  lashed  them  and  hauled  them  up  by  turns 
all  the  way  to  Crystal  Peak.  They  went  into  Crystal  Peak  in  a 
sickly  lope.  They  were  all  afoam  and  trembling  almost  in  a 
collapse  of  exhaustion. 

''Sage  Brush"  had  crowded  Bill's  team  to  the  utmost,  and 
reached  the  Peak  a  few  minutes  later. 

Bill,  pointing  to  the  panting,  trembling  horses,  said: 
'They  are  broke.  Sage  Brush."  And  Sage  Brush  replied: 
"They  look  it." 

When  the  railroad  superceded  the  stage,  "Curly  Bill" 
established  a  livery  stable  in  Virginia  City  and  later  removed 
it  to  San  Francisco,  where  he  died  last  year. 

"Sage  Brush"  drifted  to  White  Pine  and  then  back  to 
Austin.  There  one  night  he  ran  upon  his  own  sister  in  a 
questionable  place,  went  to  his  room  and  shot  himself  dead. 

Charlie  Livermore  drove  out  and  into  Virginia  City  on 
the  Placerville  route. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  paper  I  made  reference  to  Big 
John  Littlefield.  After  losing  his  situation  in  California,  he 
went  to  Virginia  City  and  his  friend,  Deland,  who  had  the 
Eclipse  mine,  gave  him  a  fine  six-horse  team  and  wagon  and 
set  him  to  hauling  quartz.  But  he  got  full,  let  the  team  get 
away  from  him  and  smash  the  wagon.  Livermore  told  me 
that  one  morning  he  was  driving  his  coach  up  the  steep  grade 
through  Gold  Hill.  He  had  his  pet  six-horse  chestnut  team 
with  all  their  trappings  on,  a  full  load,  inside  and  out,  of  pas- 
sengers, ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  he  believed  he  had  the  finest 
team  and  coach  in  the  world.  Then  he  caught  sight  of  Big 
John — who  had  driven  the  Troy  coach  and  eight  horses  be- 
tween Marysville  and  Sacramento — driving  a  donkey  not  much 
bigger  than  a  jack  rabbit  on  a  whim  close  beside  the  road. 
Livermore  said :  "I  was  foolish  enough  to  call  to  him  and  say, 
'Why,  John,  what  are  you  doing  there?'  when,  in  a  voice  like' 


230  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

a  fog  horn  John  shouted  back,  'I  am  trying  to  see  to  how  d — d 
fine  a  point  I  can  reduce  this  stage-driving  business'." 

Littlefield  went  north  and  died,  I  beheve,  in  Oregon  many 
years  ago. 

After  the  collapse  of  staging  in  Nevada,  Livermore  went 
to  Arizona  to  drive  on  a  line  there.  He  had  nothing  left  but 
one  ivory  ring  such  as  are  used  where  the  reins  cross  between 
a  team. 

His  first  drive  was  in  the  night,  and  his  only  instructions 
were  to  follow  the  road.  He  was  given  four  mules  as  wild  as 
deer.  It  took  several  men  to  hitch  them  up ;  when  they  started 
it  was  on  a  run.  A  jolt  put  out  all  the  lights.  After  a  few 
minutes  the  coach  stopped  and  the  leaders  disappeared  in  the 
darkness,  the  lead  reins  being  pulled  through  Charley's  hands. 
His  first  word  was  "Keno !' 

Someone  trying  to  find  water  had  sunk  a  great  shaft  fifty 
feet  deep,  the  lead  mules  had  run  directly  into  this  shaft.  As 
they  fell  the  goose  neck  of  the  wagon  pole  broke,  leaving  the 
wheelers  and  coach  on  the  brink.  Asked  what  he  thought, 
Livermore  said :  "I  knew  in  a  minute  that  my  ivory  ring  was 
gone  forever." 

When  Big  Jake  gave  up  staging  he  went  to  Virginia  City 
and  opened  a  bank, — not  a  national  bank,  but  one  of  King 
Faro's,  and  became  wealthy.  Each  year  when  the  snow  was 
deep  and  the  sleighing  good,  it  was  his  custom  to  hire  a  four 
or  six  horse  team  and  sleigh  with  double  bob-runners,  fill  the 
sleigh  with  robes  and  children  and  give  the  children  the  ride  of 
their  lives. 

They  are  all  gone.  I  do  not  know  one  of  the  old  band 
that  is  left. 

The  world  will  never  see  their  like  again  unless  somewhere 
in  the  Cordilleras  or  Andes  another  Comstock  may  be  found, 
beyond  the  reach  of  railroads,  where  steep  grades  will  have  to 
be  climbed  and  descended  and  sharp  curves  rounded  and  com- 
merce will  have  to  return  to  old  methods. 

As  it  is,  the  old  race  have  all  passed  away  as  did  that 
driver  in  Sacramento,  who,  when  dying,  whispered :  "It's  a 
down  erade  and  I  can't  reach  the  brake." 


JUDGE  ALEXANDER  BALDWIN. 

IN  Nevada  he  was  known  as  "Sandy"  Baldwin ;  a  small 
man  about  five  feet  eight  in  height,  weighing  perhaps 
135  pounds.  Had  he  been  born  a  bird,  he  would  have 
been  a  game  rooster  or  an  eagle. 

He  was  the  son  of  the  famous  Judge  Joe  Baldwin  of 
Alabama,  who  wrote  "Flush  Times  in  Alabama."  Sandy  was 
not  as  great  a  lawyer  or  as  profound  a  scholar  as  his  father, 
but  was  growing  to  be  both  when  overtaken  by  an  untimely 
death. 

He  was  one  of  the  partners  of  William  M.  Stewart  in 
Virginia  City  when  he  was  appointed  a  United  States  circuit 
judge  for  Nevada. 

This  appointment  sobered  him  a  good  deal,  for  he  fully 
realized  the  responsibilities  of  the  place,  and  notwithstanding 
his  impetuous  nature  and  the  strong  prejudices  which  he  never 
sought  to  conceal,  in  his  rulings  an  enemy  was  liable  to  fare 
better  than  a  friend,  for  his  thought  seemed  to  be :  "Would  it 
not  be  a  shame  were  I  to  permit  my  personal  dislikes  to  sway 
my  judicial  judgment  in  weighing  the  legal  rights  of  this 
man."     So  he  gave  him  the  benefit  of  all  his  doubts. 

But  it  was  when  practicing  law  in  Virginia  City  that  he 
shone  best.  His  audacity  was  something  beautiful  to  see,  and 
he  kept  his  natural  impudence  burnished  bright,  though  his 
hearty  good  nature  made  every  one  fond  of  him. 

One  day  in  a  case  a  great  deal  of  trouble  was  encountered 
in  selecting  a  jury.  The  attorney  opposed  to  Sandy  was  one 
given  to  spending  much  time  on  details,  some  of  them  trifling 
in  importance.  Finally,  Sandy  appealed  to  the  court,  pointing 
out  that  half  the  day  had  been  spent  on  trifles  not  worth  con- 
sidering, adding  that  a  few  minutes  were  as  good  as  a  few 
hours  in  reaching  a  conclusion  whether  a  man  was  competent 
to  sit  on  a  jury  or  not. 

His  opponent  replied  that  he  was  bound  to  use  every 


232  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

precaution  and  that  he  wanted  the  cause  of  his  client  tried  by 
a  jury  of  his  peers. 

Quick  as  a  tiash  Sandy  responded :  'T  see,  you  are  expect- 
ing a  break  from  the  Nevada  penitentiary  and  that  all  the 
convicts  will  make  a  rush  for  Story  county  to  serve  on  juries." 

In  those  years  of  1861-62  and  '63  about  the  hottest  thin;^' 
in  Storey  county  was  politics.  Parties  were  about  equally  di- 
vided and  party  feeling  ran  very  high.  A  contingent  of  the 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  was  there  and  it  was  understood 
that  if  a  break  was  made  in  California  a  like  stand  would  be 
made  in  Virginia  City.  There  were  many  sharp  cjuarrels  and 
here  and  there  a  man  was  killed,  but  when  Sumter  was  fired 
upon,  most  of  the  Douglas  Democrats  joined  with  the  Repub- 
licans, while  the  southern  wing  of  the  Democracy  clung  to  the 
cause  of  the  south. 

Sandy  was  from  the  South,  but  he  was  a  Union  man,  and 
this  made  the  chivalry  hate  him  worse  than  they  did  northern 
born  Union  men.     But  Sandy  cared  nothing  for  that. 

One  day  a  southern  man  was  telling  of  the  loss  his  family 
in  the  south  would  suffer  should  their  slaves  be  freed,  where- 
upon Sandy  offered  to  bet  him  a  thousand  dollars  to  five  hun- 
dred that  no  member  of  his  family  ever  owned  a  slave:  that 
in  the  south  he  belonged  to  the  "poor  white  trash,"  that  even 
the  slaves  had  a  contempt  for,  adding:  "I  know  you  by  your| 
walk.  You  have  that  shamble  which  is  hereditary  with  your 
class  of  poor  whites." 

Before  the  autumn  election  in  1864  the  Democrats  had  a 
county  convention  in  Virginia  City  and  determined  to  have  a 
torchlight  procession  at  night.  The  torches  were  secured  and 
a  brass  band  engaged  and  the  procession  started.  It  made  a 
fine  showing  as  it  marched  up  C  Street :  the  band  playing  and 
the  men  cheering. 

Sandy  was  watching,  but  suddenly  stepped  from  the  side- 
walk into  the  narrow  street,  and.  touching  one  of  the  link  men 
on  the  shoulder,  with  a  stately  courtesy,  said :  "Excuse  me, 
my  friend,  and  pardon  my  suggesting  that  you  carry  your 
torch  nearer  vertical,  lest  you  burn  the  hair  from  the  teeth  of' 
the  gentleman  next  behind  vou."     He  deserved  killine  everv 


JUDGE  ALEXANDER  BALDWIN.  233 

day  for  the  things  he  said,  but  somehow  they  never  killed  him. 

The  Republicans  held  a  convention  in  Virginia  City  once, 
and  a  somewhat  noted  speaker  was  very  bitter  on  the  south, 
of  the  men  who  lived  on  the  unpaid  labor  of  the  slaves,  and 
spoke  generally  disdainfully  of  southern  men  and  methods. 

When  he  finished,  Sandy  sprang  to  his  feet  and  made  a 
speech,  the  tenor  of  which  was  something  like  this : 

"I  hope  never  to  hear  another  speech  such  as  we  have  just 
listened  to,  for  it  is  hard  for  some  of  us  to  bear. 

'The  south  is  wrong  now,  but  they  are  a  brave  and  im- 
]:)etuous  race  and  I  can  understand  how,  environed  as  they  are, 
as  their  lives  have  been,  they  have  been  led  into  their  present 
attitude.  I  am  satisfied  that  had  I  remained  there,  I  should  have 
been  with  them  heart  and  soul.  But  no  matter  how  much  in 
the  wrong  they  may  be,  there  is  no  nobler  race  of  men  than 
they;  they  treat  their  slaves  better  than  the  gentleman  who  has 
just  addressed  you  would  had  he  been  a  slaveholder  among 
them ;  and  the  man  who  discounts  the  manhood  of  the  men  or 
the  womanhood  of  the  women  of  the  south,  is  to  be  pitied  for 
his  ignorance,  for  he  knows  nothing  of  what  he  essays  to 
discuss." 

Judge  Baldwin  had  a  high  and  proud  career  in  Nevada 
and  grew  in  intellect  as  the  years  went  by,  but  suddenly  in  the 
very  prime  of  his  manhood  and  when  his  abilities  were  at  their 
highest,  he  was,  in  1869,  killed  instantly  in  a  railroad  collision 
near  Alameda,  California. 

He  was  greatly  missed  and  mourned  in  Nevada. 

He  would  have  been  a  distinct  personality  in  any  country ; 
so  game  was  he,  so  alert,  so  audacious  and  yet  so  kindly.  He 
had  all  the  attributes  that  go  to  make  up  a  brilliant  and  stal- 
wart man;  he  was  an  honor  to  his  name,  to  the  state  that  gave 
him  birth,  to  the  state  in  which  he  was  so  conspicuous  a  figure 
for  fifteen  years.  He  was  buried  from  the  home  of  his  great 
relative,  John  B.  Felton,  in  Oakland,  and  the  winds  that  sweep 
in  through  the  Golden  Gate  pause  to  murmur  over  no  braver 
grave  than  his. 

Judge  Baldwin's  wife  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
women  of  the  west  coast.    About  the  time  of  the  judge's  death 

16 


234  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

the  wife  of  General  John  B.  Winter,  Superintendent  of  the 
Yellow  Jacket  mine  at  Gold  Hill,  died.  The  families  had  been 
intimate  friends  and  two  or  three  years  after  the  death  of 
Judge  Baldwin  and  Mrs.  Winter,  the  General  and  Mrs.  Bald- 
win were  married,  and  a  little  later  removed  to  San  Francisco. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  mining  on  the  Comstock  a 
weird  woman  lived  there.  She  kept  a  boarding  house  at  first 
in  Gold  Hill,  but  became  the  owner  of  twenty  feet  in  one  of 
the  Gold  Hill  mines;  the  Alta,  I  believe.  "Sandy"  Bowers, 
an  illiterate  and  uncouth  man  in  many  ways,  a  rough  miner, 
also  owned  twenty  feet  of  the  Gold  Hill  ground.  He  boarded 
at  the  house  of  this  woman  and  soon  made  her  acquaintance ; 
they  were  each  receiving  large  dividends  from  their  interests ; 
at  last  they  were  married  and  their  united  ground,  when  sold, 
made  them  very  rich. 

Mrs.  Bowers  claimed  to  possess  the  second  sight,  and  I 
guess  she  did,  for  she  told  people  many  things  which  seemed 
to  have  no  more  substance  than  a  vagrant  dream,  but,  as  a 
rule,  they  came  true.  She  was  called  "the  Washoe  seeress," 
and  some  of  the  strongest  men  on  the  Comstock  were  wont 
to  consult  her.  She  knew  Judge  and  Mrs.  Baldwin  well,  as 
she  did  almost  everyone  else  in  western  Nevada. 

One  day  in  1877,  I  think,  she  met  R.  M.  Daggett  on  the 
street  and  Daggett  accosted  her  in  his  cheery  way,  with : 
"What's  the  news,  Mrs.  Bowers?" 

She  replied :  "I  have  something  very  strange  to  tell  you, 
Mr.  Daggett.  I  was  alone  riding  in  my  buggy  down  in  the 
valley  last  night,  when  suddenly  Sandy  (Baldwin)  sat  on  the 
seat  beside  me.  I  hate  to  have  him  come,  for  he  is  always 
jollying  me  the  same  as  he  used  to  when  in  the  old  days  I  met 
him  here  in  Virginia  City. 

"But  last  night  there  was  an  exultant,  joyous  look  on  his 
face — a  kind  of  glory — and  he  held  up  before  me  a  pair  of 
white  gloves — you  never  saw  anything  of  such  celestial  white- 
ness as  were  those  gloves,  and  he  whispered :  'Alice  will  be  a 
bride  again  tonight.'  Have  you  heard  any  news  from  San 
Francisco  this  morning?" 

Daggett  replied  that  he  had  not.  that  he  had  just  come 


JUDGE  ALEXANDER  BALDWIN.      235 

clown  town  and  was  on  the  way  to  his  office.  As  he  ascended 
the  stairs,  he  was  saying  to  himself:  "The  old  lady  is  grow- 
ing more  and  more  uncanny."  He  entered  his  office,  hung  up 
his  hat  and  sat  down  at  his  desk,  when  there  before  him  lay  a 
sealed  telegraph  dispatch.  He  tore  it  open  and  read  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"San  Francisco,  Cal., . 

"Editor  Enterprise,  Va,  City,  Nev. 

"Mrs.  John  B.  Winter — she  who  was  the  late  Judge 
Alexander  Baldwin's  wife,  died  in  this  city  at  1:15  o'clock  this 
morning." 

All  their  friends  hope  that  the  phantom  gloves  were 
drawn  in  all  their  whiteness  upon  her  ghostly  hands  that  night 
and  that  their  second  honeymoon  is  to  last  through  all  eternity. 


PROFESSOR  JOSHUA  CLAYTON. 

THE  schools  do  not  perfect  all  the  great  men,  or  open  for 
them  avenues  to  travel  up  the  trails  which  lead  to  success. 
They  do  not  supply  half  the  school  masters  of  this 
world,  for  now  and  then  there  comes  one  who  can  teach  the 
masters. 

The  heroes  do  not  all  appear  on  the  battle  line,  or  on  the 
decks  of  fighting  ships,  for  the  bravest  of  the  brave  are  those 
who  fight  their  way  through  the  dark  ambuscades  of  ignorance 
and  poverty  and  superstition  up  into  the  celestial  light. 

Joshua  Clayton  was  one  of  these.  Born  somewhere  in  the 
wild  mountainous  regions  of  Georgia,  in  the  heroic  squalor 
which  abounded  there  some  four  score  years  ago,  where  poverty 
was  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course,  but  where  a  fierce  manhood 
would  brook  no  criticisms,  nor  acknowledge  that  there  was 
anything  to  be  apologized  for ;  in  those  primitive  surroundings 
Joshua  Clayton  was  born  and  grew  to  manhood. 

All  his  life,  to  his  credit,  he  was  proud  of  the  manhood 
and  exalted  womanhood  of  that  region,  his  belief  being  that  it 
was  from  such  stock  that  primitive  man  emerged  and  from 
which,  when  the  right  germs  began  to  expand,  civilization  and 
enlightenment  were  finally  evolved. 

Somehow  he  learned  to  read  and  write,  and  to  obtain  the 
simplest  rudiments  of  an  education.  We  suspect  that  he  owed 
more  to  a  glorified  mother  than  to  all  the  schools — we  mean 
schools  taught  by  men  and  women. 

But  of  the  other  school,  that  of  nature,  he  was  a  pupil  all 
his  days ;  from  rocks  and  trees  and  stars  all  his  life  he  drew 
knowledge  which  through  the  chemistry  of  genius  he  trans- 
muted into  wisdom. 

He  would  have  been  a  boon  companion  of  John  ]\Iuir. 
Together  they  would  have  searched  the  record  of  the  glacier 
and  discovered  the  vital  energies  that  set  it  in  flow :  where  the 
earthquake  had  been  upon  its  march,  like  camp  followers,  they 


PROFESSOR  JOSHUA  CLAYTON.  237 

would   have   unearthed   from  the   debris   it   left   why   it   was 
wakened  to  life  and  the  object  of  its  campaign. 

He  was  an  omniverous  reader;  a  lifelong  student,  who, 
after  a  hard  day's  toil  loved  nothing  so  much,  to  rest  himself, 
as  to  spend  half  the  night  in  working  out  some  scientific  prob- 
lem. He  went  over  the  problems  that  other  scientists  had 
solved  and  tried  them  to  see  if  they  would  stand  the  test  of 
later  knowledge,  and  many  a  time  he  pointed  out  their  errors. 

He  was  one  who,  had  no  elements  of  science  ever  been 
reduced  to  rule  and  form,  would  have  promulgated  the  rules 
and  established  the  forms.  Often  he  would  modestly  demon- 
strate by  exact  figures  or  illustrations  where  this  or  that  great 
man  had  erred,  both  in  theory  and  in  elucidation,  at  the  same 
time  explaining  how  natural  was  the  mistake  with  such  lights 
as  the  learned  men  had  before  them  at  the  time  they  lived. 

He  came  with  the  Argonauts  to  the  west  coast,  and  his 
years  in  California  were  devoted  to  study,  and  to  obtain  means 
to  live  upon  he  worked  in  the  placers  and  in  the  quartz  mills. 
He  was  an  expert  worker  of  gold  ores. 

Give  him  a  shell  and  he  would  at  a  glance  tell  you  to  what 
age  it  belonged  and  how  long  its  former  inmate  was  engaged 
in  building  the  house  in  which  he  lived  before 
"*     *     *     he  was  free. 

Leaving  his  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea." 

To  his  opinions  on  all  these  Cjuestions,  Clarence  King, 
Raymond — the  whole  array  of  scientists,  conceded  his  superi- 
ority. 

He  loved  to  sit  by  the  hour  where  the  earthquake  had 
rent  the  earth's  crust,  and  explain  why  it  was  attended  by  cer- 
tain profound  phenomena. 

He  loved  to  explain  why  the  glacier  was  but  a  sublime 
preliminary  in  preparing  the  earth  for  races  of  intelligent 
beings,  which  at  the  time  and  for  millions  of  years  thereafter 
had  no  existence  save  in  the  mind  of  God. 

Could  such  a  man  have  strolled  quietly  into  Athens  and 
found  Socrates  teaching  the  youth  of  the  city,  he  would  have 
sat  down  beside  the  great  scientist  and  explained  that  from  the 


238  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

cropping-s  and  other  surface  indications  the  old  sage  was 
mistaken. 

He  was  always  humble,  cheerful,  kindly  and  passionately- 
fond  of  real  friends,  but  he  really  needed  no  society  except 
his  hand  hammer,  his  magnifying  glass  and  a  mountain  crest 
covered  with  shells  and  rocks. 

With  these  he  could  summon  all  the  ages  around  him,  all 
the  master  spirits  of  the  past,  and  be  at  home  with  them. 
He  became  a  great  geologist;  he  read  surface  indications  as 
an  open  book.     In  this  he  never  made  but  one  mistake. 

He  was  prone  to  tell  from  surface  indications  what  would 
surely  be  found  in  the  deep,  and  this  propensity  he  could  never 
outgrow.  He  knew  the  rock  formations  were  full  of  faults : 
that  the  chimneys  in  the  fissures  up  which  the  treasures  were 
drawn  were  often  closed,  but  he  seemed  to  have  a  passion  for 
what  would  surely  be  found  below,  and  thus  made  mistakes. 

He  said  from  the  first,  as  did  Professor  Frank  Stewart, 
that  the  natural  pitch  of  the  Comstock  was  to  the  east,  and 
gave  his  reasons  for  his  belief  in  the  face  of  Professor  Silli- 
man's  judgment,  and  was  right.  He  was  the  first,  we  believe, 
to  call  attention  to  the  mighty  future  which  Ely  district  would 
have,  and  in  his  wanderings  he  took  in  every  known  mining 
camp  of  Nevada  and  passed  upon  its  worth. 

Then  he  explored  Utah  and  later  Montana,  and  in  almost 
every  case  his  translations  of  the  hieroglyphics  which  the  ages 
had  inscribed  upon  the  rocks,  were  right. 

^^  hen  the  day's  work  was  completed  it  was  a  fascination 
to  listen  to  him  as  he  recalled  his  life  since  reaching-  California. 
Before  anyone  else  had  done  it,  he  had  counted  the  little  records 
made  by  the  years  on  the  stump  of  a  mighty  Sequoia  in  Cala- 
veras county,  California,  to  make  sure  of  the  age  of  the  big 
tree.  He  told  me  that  it  was  978  years  old  when  King  John 
signed  the  Magna  Charta  and  1255  years  old  when  Columbus 
first  sailed  for  the  New  \\'orld.  He  sketched  for  me  the 
work  of  the  glaciers  in  grinding  down  the  shales  and  freeing 
the  gold  found  in  California  placers.  It  was  a  great  shock  to 
him  when  silver  was  demonetized.  "\\'hat  are  they  thinking 
of?"  he  said.   Then  he  explained  that  from  the  first  the  increase 


PROFESSOR  JOSHUA  CLAYTON.  239 

and  decrease  of  the  production  of  the  precious  metals  had 
marked  the  ebb  and  flow  of  civiHzation :  that  from  the  first 
gold  had  been  the  money  of  kings  and  the  rich  of  the  world, 
that  silver  had  been  the  anchor  of  the  poor ;  that  when  in  Jeru- 
salem "silver  was  no  more  accounted,"  the  masses  of  the  people 
were  so  steeped  in  poverty  and  in  such  despair  that  so  soon  as 
Solomon  died,  they  revolted  under  unbearable  burdens;  that 
the  infusion  of  silver  into  Europe  from  Mexico  and  Peru  at 
last  gave  the  poor  the  courage  to  cry  out  for  freedom  and  the 
French  revolution  was  the  final  explosion.  Then  he  predicted 
that  with  gold  the  only  standard  in  the  United  States,  it  would 
speedily  be  absorbed  by  the  rich  and  panics  and  depression 
would  follow. 

He  was  an  intense  American.  When  in  a  frenzy  his  native 
state  framed  a  secession  ordinance,  he  read  the  account,  grow- 
ing very  white  and  still,  then  dropped  the  paper,  sat  for  a  long 
time  in  silence,  and  those  near  him  heard  him,  speaking  low  to 
himself,  murmur :  "Father,  forgive  them  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do." 

A  rare,  high,  brave,  humble  soul ;  for  forty  years  he  made 
but  a  doubtful  living  in  the  states  of  California,  Nevada,  Utah, 
Idaho,  Montana  and  Oregon,  and  was  finally  fatally  injured  in 
a  stage  coach  accident.  Not  one  in  a  hundred  of  those  who 
knew  him  half  appreciated  his  marvelous  intellect  or  the 
grandeur  and  nobility  of  his  soul. 

They  made  his  grave  in  the  beautiful  cemetery  that  over- 
looks the  city  of  Portland,  Oregon.  It  is  such  a  place  as  he 
would  have  chosen  for  a  resting  place,  for  there  nature  is  lavish 
in  her  splendors,  and  a  hush  like  the  calm  of  his  own  soul 
broods  over  the  place  even  as  when  a  mother  bird  gathers  under 
her  wings  her  brood  that  they  undisturbed  may  sleep. 

Below,  the  clear  Willamette  winds  through  its  lovely 
valley;  in  the  distance  "rolls  the  Oregon,"  and  Hood,  and  Jef- 
ferson, and  Adams  and  St.  Helens  and  the  other  sentinel  moun- 
tains keep  perpetual  guard  around  his  grave.  After  his  high 
and  blameless  life,  it  is  sweet  to  think  of  him  wrapped  in  the 
hush  of  eternity  amid  just  such  scenes  as  were  his  rest  and 
delight  in  life. 


ADOLPH  SUTRO. 

HE  ^^"AS  a  massive  and  masterful  man  physically.  He 
must  have  been  six  feet  and  two  inches  in  height  and 
big  every  way.  When  I  knew  him  best,  he  weighed 
perhaps  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds,  but  was  as  active 
as  a  boy  and  seemed  ever  driven  on  by  an  energy  that  never 
tired.  He  had  a  lion-like  face  and  a  brain  that  was  always 
alert  and  strong. 

He  was  an  early  comer  to  San  Francisco  from  some  Ger- 
man state.  It  is  said,  and  his  after  life  was  a  confirmation  of 
the  story,  that  he  brought  with  him  several  kegs  of  German 
coins,  worth  about  seventeen  cents  each.  It  was  most  diffi- 
cult in  California  at  that  time  to  get  the  small  change  needed 
in  business.  There  were  plenty  of  slugs  (fifty  dollar  octagon 
pieces)  twenty  and  ten  and  five  dollar  pieces,  but  small  change 
was  very  scarce.  So  the  German  coins  passed  readily  for 
twenty-five  cent  pieces  and  Mr.  Sutro  lost  no  money  on  them. 
He  opened  or  purchased  a  modest  cigar  and  tobacco  store  and 
attended  to  it  carefully,  but  his  brain  was  at  work.  He  kept 
posted  on  everything  that  concerned  business  in  the  Golden 
State,  watched,  studied  and  waited. 

When  the  Comstock  was  discovered  with  its  mixed  gold 
and  silver  ores — the  values  were  56  silver  and  44  gold — there 
was  not  a  man  in  the  United  States  who  could  reduce  the  ores 
in  a  practical  way  and  give  a  fair  percentage  of  the  values, 
except  by  smelting  them;  there  was  no  flux  to  do  that,  and 
the  great  body  of  ore  was  too  low  grade  to  bear  shipping  to 
where  it  could  be  smelted.  It  was  clear  that  the  reduction 
must  be  near  the  mines.  Rude  mills  were  erected,  but  the  loss 
sufifered  by  running  the  ores  through  them  was  enormous. 
The  old  Spanish  Patio  process  was  tried,  but  that  was  too  slow 
and  imperfect.  In  those  days,  about  one  man  out  of  four  had 
a  process  for  working  the  ores,  most  of  which  were,  of  course, 
worthless. 

Colonel  Brevoort  had  a  little  mill  down  at  Silver  Citv 


ADOLPH  SUTRO.  241 

and  made  a  small  fortune  running  it,  but  all  the  time  was  at 
work  in  his  laboratory  and  succeeded.  With  a  few  ounces  of 
crushed  ore  he  could  draw  all  the  precious  metals  they  con- 
tained to  one  pole  of  his  battery.  He  sold  his  mill,  went  east 
and  exhausted  the  fortune  he  had  made  in  trying  to  make  liis 
invention  of  practical  value,  but  failed. 

Mr.  Sutro  must  have  invented  a  process,  for  he  crossed 
the  mountains  and  built  a  small  mill  at  Dayton.  Like  the  pru- 
dent man  that  he  was,  he  had  the  mill  insured.  But  it  would 
not  work  the  ores,  and,  after  making  several  trials,  he  closed 
the  mill  down.  Shortly  after,  one  night  the  mill  burned  down. 
No  <  )ne  could  ever  account  for  the  fire,  but  that  it  was  an  honest 
one  there  could  be  no  doubt,  for  Mr.  Sutro  was  at  Virginia 
City  that  night  and  the  keeper  was  burned  to  death  in  the  mill. 
From  the  beginning  much  water  was  encountered  in  sink- 
ing on  the  Comstock  and  that  it  must  be  drained  by  tunnels 
was  accepted  as  a  fact.  One  or  more  short  tunnels  were  run. 
After  the  burning  of  the  mill,  Sutro  took  up  this  scheme  in 
earnest.  He  had  surveys  made,  maps  prepared  and  demon- 
strated that  a  tunnel  about  four  miles  long  started  on  the  banks 
of  the  Carson  River,  north  of  Dayton,  and  driven  to  the  Com- 
stock would  tap  the  great  lode  some  1 ,650  feet  below  C  street 
in  A'irginia  City. 

He  organized  a  company.  He  showed  that  the  great  ore 
channel  could  be  drained  and  all  the  ores  from  the  mine  could 
be  run  out  through  the  tunnel  far  cheaper  than  to  transport 
them  by  wagon.  Then  it  was  most  natural  to  expect  that  in 
its  course  the  tunnel  would  encounter  other  paying  veins,  par- 
allel to  the  great  lode.  The  mining  companies  along  the  lode 
looked  upon  the  scheme  as  practical  and  at  first  gave  it  full 
encouragement. 

Sutro  knew  nothing  about  running  tunnels,  but  with  his 
disposition  to  dominate  everything  he  insisted,  not  onlv  upon 
acting  as  superintendent,  but  upon  superintending  the  details 
of  which  he  knew  nothing.  He  bought  shiploads,  almost,  of 
machinery  which  proved  worthless,  and  ran  the  business  in  a 
way  which  was  clear  evidence  of  incapacity. 

Tn  the  meantime,  some  of  the  .shrewdest  and  sc|uarest  in- 


242  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

dustrial  chieftains  ever  seen  in  the  West  were  opening  the 
Comstock ;  they  would  not  stand  for  Sutro's  work,  and  when 
they  told  him  what  must  be  and  he  refused,  there  was  a  quarrel 
and  they  washed  their  hands  of  the  enterprise. 

Then  Sutro  began  his  clamors  against  them.  He  desig- 
nated them  as  the  "bank  ring,"  which,  in  his  broken  English, 
he  pronounced  "bankving,"  and  for  years  his  denunciations  of 
the  "bankving"  were  incessant,  and  the  perfidy  which  he  in- 
sisted had  been  practiced  upon  him  was  one  of  his  chief  argu- 
m_ents  for  selling  the  tunnel  stock. 

Meanwhile  the  men  at  work  on  the  great  lode  were  doing 
more  and  more  superb  work.  They  installed  more  and  more 
and  larger  and  larger  pumps,  sank  deeper  and  deeper  until, 
by  the  time  the  tunnel  reached  the  lode,  the  mine  w^as  opened 
1,000  feet  deeper  than  where  the  tunnel  pierced  it,  and  thus 
the  great  necessity  of  the  tunnel  was  largely  discounted.  After 
years  of  trial,  Sutro  finally  relinquished  all  but  the  general  su- 
perintendency,  leaving  the  driving  of  the  tunnel  to  the  capable 
men  below  ground. 

Then  the  political  bee  that  had  hived  in  Sutro's  bonnet  be- 
gan to  buzz.  By  1872  he  was  prominent  in  politics.  He  was 
loud  in  his  praises  of  the  gentleman  who,  for  the  two  previous 
years,  had  been  Nevada's  Democratic  congressman,  declaring 
that  he  was  the  only  honest  man  that  Nevada  had  sent  to  either 
House  of  Congress  for  years ;  that  he  was  one  man  who  could 
not  be  corrupted. 

It  transpired  later  that  in  some  quiet  way  the  Congress- 
man had  reached  an  understanding  with  Sutro  by  which  Sutro 
felt  sure  that  he  could  depend  upon  the  Congressman  serving 
him  in  any  way  he  might  suggest.  But  he  must  have  been 
mistaken,  for  within  a  brief  half-year,  Sutro  was  not  only 
denouncing  him  as  the  biggest  thief  of  the  whole  bunch,  but,  ; 
moreover,  the  most  treacherous  and  ungrateful  one. 

As  a  sample  of  Sutro's  methods,  as  that  election  drew 

near,  he  employed  all  the  men  who  made  applications  for  work 

until  he  had  within  and  about  the  tunnel  fifteen  hundred  men. 

Then  three  days  before  the  election  he  assembled  them 

and   made   a   speech,    the   burden    of   which   was   that   if   hi> 


ADOLPH  SUTRO.  243 

friend,  the  Congressman,  should  be  re-elected  they  could  all 
depend  upon  permanent  employment,  but  if  he  failed  of  elec- 
tion, he  would  be  obliged  to  close  down  the  entire  works. 

His  friend  was  elected  and  on  the  first  payday  after  elec- 
tion they  were  all  dropped  except  the  regular  force  of  about 
one  hundred  and  forty  men. 

In  1874  Sutro  was  a  pronounced  candidate  for  the  United 
States  Senate.  He  established  a  daily  newspaper  on  the  Com- 
stock  and  employed  that  fine  writer  and  man,  Charles  Sumner, 
of  San  Francisco,  to  manage  and  edit  it.  Charlie  did  his  best 
and  did  great  work,  but  we  have  a  suspicion  that  for  years 
thereafter  he  would  have  been  willing  to  certify  that  the  work 
was  the  toughest  in  his  experience.  Sutro  himself  rigged  up  a 
magic  lantern  and  made  an  illuminating  campaign  of  the  state. 

There  seemed  to  be  sort  of  an  affinity  between  him  and  the 
lantern.  At  Hamilton,  in  the  midst  of  his  speech,  the  lantern 
grew  suddenly  dim,  the  voice  of  Sutro  began  to  falter ;  then 
the  lamp  blazed  up  for  a  moment  and  the  speech  was  resumed 
with  energy,  then  the  lamp  dimmed  again,  and  with  a  final 
sputter  went  out  and  just  as  suddenly  the  lecture  closed. 

I  was  editor  of  the  Virginia  Enterprise  at  the  time,  and 
early  in  the  campaign  I  promised  Sutro,  through  the  paper, 
that  he  should  not  have  one  vote  for  Senator  in  the  Legislature. 
And  he  did  not. 

His  feelings  were  much  lacerated  by  the  result,  but  the 
people  contemplated  his  sufferings  with  dry  eyes. 

He  sold  the  stock  of  the  tunnel  only,  as  he  claimed,  to  get 
money  to  complete  it.  The  men  of  his  native  country  and  of 
his  race  purchased  the  most  of  it,  and  it  was  with  apparent 
great  sorrow  that  he  let  any  of  it  go ;  it  would,  as  he  predicted, 
pay  such  princely  dividends  when  completed. 

Shortly  after  the  tunnel  pierced  the  lode,  Sutro  resigned 
the  superintendency,  shook  the  sage-brush  and  the  dust  of 
Nevada  from  his  brogans  and  removed  to  San  Francisco. 

Then  the  stockholders  discovered  that  despite  his  high 
estimation  of  the  value  of  the  stock,  he  had  been  persuaded  to 
unload  practically  the  whole  of  it  upon  his  friends ;  they  had 
the  stock  anrl  the  experience ;  Sutro  liad  a  good  many  millions 


244  AS  I  REAIEAIBER  THEM. 

of  dollars.  This  I  have  from  one  of  his  own  race  and  one  of 
the  heaviest  stockholders  in  the  tunnel. 

I  did  not  follow  his  career  very  closely  in  San  Francisco. 
He  transformed  the  spot  now  called  "Sutro  Heights"  and  pre- 
sented it  to  the  city.  How  the  gift  affected  the  value  of  his 
other  real  estate  in  the  neighborhood  I  never  learned.  He 
served  a  term  as  mayor,  and  I  am  informed  made  a  good  mayor. 
It  seemed  clear  to  some  of  us  that  he  was  still  working  for 
the  position  he  had  so  long  coveted — a  United  States  senator- 
ship.     His  career  was  suddenly  cut  short  by  death. 

But  no  one  must  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  he  was  a  mas- 
terful man,  physically  and  mentally,  that  with  the  absence  of 
two  or  three  traits  which  w^ere  inborn,  he  would  have  been  a 
great  and  commanding  man.  that,  as  it  was,  the  w^ork  he  wrought 
through  the  long  years  in  which  the  tunnel  was  building  was 
a  tremendous  one,  such  an  evidence  of  courage,  faith  and  ten- 
acity of  purpose  as  few  men  have  shown,  and  that  the  tunnel 
today  is  the  splendid  monument  which  he  built  to  himself — out 
of  the  sale  of  his  stock. 


HARRY  MIGHELS. 

A  SMALL  man  physically  was  Harry  Mighels,  but  the 
concentration  of  genius,  audacity  and  pluck.  In  young- 
manhood  he  was  associate  editor  with  Crossett  on  a 
newspaper  in  Oroville,  California.  They  made  it  the  most 
sprightly  and  interesting  newspaper  in  northern  California.  At 
that  time,  Oroville  was  but  a  mining  camp,  the  depot  and  sup- 
ply station  of  extensive  placer  mining,  where,  from  the  ordi- 
nary simple  washing  of  gold  from  the  sands,  there  was  the 
damming  of  the  rivers  in  the  autumn,  and  the  washing  of  their 
beds  down  to  bed  rock. 

The  rivers  were  dammed,  the  waters  turned  aside  in 
flumes  and  ditches,  and  then  the  rush  to  mine  out  the 
section  thus  exposed  before  the  heavy  rains  of  the  autumn 
came,  and  the  rivers,  crushing  everything  before  them, 
returned  to  their  channels.  If  the  dry  season  was  long  con- 
tinued, little  fortunes  were  made;  if  the  rains  came  early,  for- 
tunes were  lost.  It  was  entirely  legitimate  work,  but  it  was, 
nevertheless,  absolute  gambling.  A  man  or  company  in  effect 
wagered,  say  $20,000  on  the  weather.  The  bet  was  that  it 
would  not  rain  before  a  certain  time.  If  it  did  not,  then  tlie 
man  or  company  w^on  from  $50,000  to  $200,000  through  wash- 
ing the  gravel  above  bedrock.  A  great  many  men  won  for- 
tunes that  way,  and  were  at  once  rated  as  shrewd,  sagacious 
miners.  If  the  rains  came  unexpectedly  early  and  the  invest- 
ment was  lost,  there  were  plenty  to  aver  that  any  fool  could 
have  told  them  that  it  w-as  impossible  to  turn  the  stream  in 
time  to  wash  the  river  bed. 

But  there  was  a  great  deal  of  this  work  done,  and  that  was 
an  exceedingly  rich  gold  region  is  still  in  full  evidence,  for  the 
steam  dredge  has  laid  waste  all  the  region  around  there  to  filch 
from  it  its  gold,  even  to  the  extent  of  tearing  up  the  orange 
orchards  on  the  river's  banks. 

It  was  there  that  Mighels  reveled  in  the  excitement  of 
mingling   with  the   hundreds   and   thousands   of  the   old-day 


246  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

miners.  He  wrote  extravagant  stories,  the  more  extravagant 
the  better  they  suited;  he  said  through  the  type  audaciou- 
things  about  miners  real  and  fictitious,  and  the  miners  laughe^ . 
over  them;  he  was  little  more  than  a  boy  and  small  in  stature. 
and  the  miners  said :  "Is  he  not  a  game  and  saucy  little  cuss  ?"" 
He  was  a  devoted  lifelong  friend  of  George  C.  Gorham ;  and 
was  to  Oroville  what  Gorham  was  to  Marysville. 

On  one  occasion  it  was  determined  to  give  a  grand  ball 
in  Oroville.  In  anticipation  of  it,  Mighels  drank  too  much  Cal- 
ifornia wine.  It  was  a  new  beverage  then  and  cheap,  and  it  is 
true  that  while  French  grapes  carry  but  a  little  more  than  three 
per  cent  of  alcohol  those  of  California  carry  from  thirteen  to 
sixteen  per  cent. 

The  result  was  that  when  it  was  time  for  the  dancing  to 
begin,  Harry  w^as  not  in  a  condition  for  dancing,  except  that 
when  he  attempted  to  walk  his  motion  took  on  some  of  the  con- 
ditions of  a  two-step;  but  it  was  not  keeping  step  with  any 
music.  His  sublime  confidence  never  deserted  him.  He 
approached  Mrs.  Crossett,  as  the  skilful  captain  does  the  en- 
emy's earthworks — by  zig-zags,  and  besought  the  honor  of  a 
dance.  Mrs.  Crossett,  with  a  laugh,  said :  ''Not,  now,  Harry ; 
there  is  not  room  on  the  floor  for  all  your  steps,"  and  taking 
the  arm  of  another  gentleman,  proceeded  to  the  ball  room,  leav- 
ing Harry  in  the  most  indignant  and  unforgivable  mood  in  the 
world.  A  short  hall  connected  the  reception  and  ball  rooms. 
Mighels  worked  his  way  to  this  hall,  and  when  the  dance  was 
over  and  the  dancers  came  out,  as  Mrs.  Crossett  approached. 
Harry,  with  a  lofty  air,  said :  "Mrs.  Crossett,  I  wish  to  speak 
to  you."  "What  is  it,  Harry?"  was  the  lady's  reply.  He 
straightened  up  and  extending  his  right  arm,  said :  "I  wish  to 
inform  you,  madam,  that  in  my  opinion  you  are  no  gentleman.'" 

The  truth  of  the  remark  could  not  be  questioned,  and  it 
added  to  the  hilarity  of  the  occasion. 

When  the  great  Civil  war  came  on,  Harry  did  not  hesitate 
for  a  moment.  He  took  the  first  steamer  for  the  East,  enlisted 
and  was  given  a  place  on  General  Joe  Hooker's  stafif. 

At  Antietam  he  was  desperately  wounded.  \\'hen  stretched 
upon  the  operating  table,  the  surgeons  examined  the  wound. 


HARRY  MIGHELS.  247 

and  their  faces  became  grave.  Harry  was  watching  them,  and 
in  a  feeble  voice  said  to  the  chief  surgeon:  ''What  are  my 
chances,  doctor?"  With  a  compassionate  voice,  the  sm-geon 
repHed  :  'I  am  sorry  to  say  you  have  not  more  than  one  chance 
in  ten  to  Hve."  "One  in  ten,"  repHed  Mighels  cheerily.  "I 
will  take  that  chance.  I  tell  you  there  was  never  a  rebel  bullet 
cast  that  could  kill  me."  He  finally  pulled  through,  but  was 
long  recovering  and  never  again  could  join  the  army.  After 
the  war,  he  returned  to  California  and  soon  drifted  to  Nevada. 
There  some  old  and  new  friends  endorsed  for  him  and  he 
established  the  Carson  Appeal.  He  ran  it  with  all  the  old-time 
vigor. 

When  the  Virginia  and  Truckee  Railroad  was  under  con- 
struction it  was  impossible  to  get  competent  white  laborers 
except  at  miner's  wages,  and  the  company  obtained  Chinese 
graders  from  the  Southern  Pacific.  They  graded  the 
road  from  Carson  up  to  the  Storey  county  line.  (Vir- 
ginia City  is  in  Storey  county.)  Then  a  delegation  of  the  Com- 
stock  Miners'  union  called  upon  Mr.  Yerington,  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  little  road,  and  told  him  that  if  his  Chinese 
graders  ever  tried  to  extend  the  grade  over  the  county  line 
something  very  serious  would  certainly  happen,  and  advised 
him  not  to  try  it. 

Mighels,  at  the  time  was  under  many  obligations  to  the 
owners  of  the  little  road,  and  day  after  day,  through  the 
Appeal,  scored  the  foreign-born  miners  who  would  not  permit 
another  class  of  foreigners  to  earn  their  bread  in  a  class  of 
work  which  the  miners  would  not  engage  in  at  any  price.  His 
anathemas  against  the  foreign-born  miners  were  terrible.  All 
that  invective  and  scorn  could  invent  was  poured  out  through 
the  Appeal  morning  after  morning,  and  when  anything  espe- 
cially savage  appeared,  Mighels  would  go  to  Virginia  City 
that  day  and  walk  the  streets  with  the  biggest  chip  on  his 
shoulder  that  a  man  of  his  size  ever  carried. 

Some  years  later  a  political  convention  nominated  him 
for  lieutenant-governor.  He  stumped  the  state  and  the  date  of 
his  meeting  in  Virginia  City  was  advertised  some  days  in 
advance. 


248  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

His  opponent  went  to  the  library  and  from  the  Appeal 
files  copied  the  most  furious  of  the  expressions  that  he  had 
used  in  his  fight  upon  the  foreign  miners;  had  them  set  up  and 
struck  off  in  leaflets  which  by  thousands  were  scattered  over 
the  sidewalks  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  on  which  Mighels 
was  advertised  to  speak. 

That  same  afternoon,  Harry  came  into  the  Enterprise 
editorial  rooms  and  said  to  me :  "They  are  going  to  pack  the 
house  on  me  tonight.  Some  of  them  are  hot  enough  to  shoot 
or  bring  on  a  riot.  What  is  your  idea  of  the  best  way  to  meet 
those  wild  devils?'  I  said,  'T  don't  know,  Harry,  except  in 
my  thought,  as  lots  of  them  are  fighters,  they  will  stand  a  brave 
bluff  better  than  an  apology." 

The  meeting  came  off  as  advertised  and  about  midnight 
Mighels  came  again  to  the  Enterprise  office,  and  in  response  to 
the  inquriy  of  "What  kind  of  a  meeting  did  you  have,  Harry?" 
he  said :  "The  sons  of  guns,  they  came  there  to  scoff :  they 
W'Cnt  away  to  pray." 

One  who  was  at  the  meeting  told  me  what  happened.  His 
words  were  about  as  follows : 

"The  gallery  was  packed  to  the  limit  with  men  who  were 
there  for  any  kind  of  a  row  up  to  riot  and  murder. 

"Mighels,  with  no  introduction,  walked  to  the  front  of 
the  stage  with  a  bunch  of  leaflets  that  had  been  scattered  on 
the  street,  in  his  right  hand.  The  house  was  as  still  as  a  Cali- 
fornia morning  when  an  earthquake  was  scheduled  for  that  da; 

"Holding  up  the  leaflets,  Mighels,  looking  up  at  the  hos- 
tile rows  of  faces  in  the  gallery,  said :  T  suppose  the  few  o; 
you  who  can  read  have  read  these  things  to  the  rest  of  yoi 
Let  me  tell  you  something.  I  wrote  them.  Every  word  o: 
them. 

"  'Why  I  wrote  them  you  will  never  know,  for  the  secret! 
of  the  sanctum  are  as  sacred  as  the  secrets  of  the  confessional; 

"  T  am  a  candidate   for  lieutenant-governor.      I  would] 
inasmuch  as  I  have  been  nominated,  like  to  get  as  many  vote; 
as  possible,  but  let  me  inform  you  that  I  do  not  need  the  oflfia 
I  have  that  little  printing  office  down  at  Carson ;  I  have  enougl 
paper  on  hand  to  last  me  ten  or  fifteen  days ;  I  have  a  wife  and 


I 


HARRY  MIGHELS.  249 

four  children/  then,  retreating  a  step,  he  slowly  picked  up  a 
glass  of  water  from  the  table,  took  a  swallow,  and  slowly 
set  down  the  glass.  Suddenly  lifting  his  fist  and  bringing  it 
down  with  a  resounding  blow  on  the  table,  he  shouted :  'And 
they  are  all  mine.' 

"The  audacity  of  it  all,  the  certain  conviction  that  came 
to  those  who  had  gone  there  to  break  up  his  meeting,  that 
they  might  do  it,  that  possibly  they  might  kill  him  but  never 
scare  him,  came  upon  them  in  a  flash  and  they  shook  the  house 
with  their  cheers,  and  cheered  every  point  he  made  during 
the  meeting,  and  at  its  close  left  the  house  saying  as  did  the 
Oroville  miner  twenty-five  years  earlier,  Ts  he  not  a  game  and 
saucy  little  cuss?'  " 

But  even  then  an  insidious  and  fatal  disease  had  begun 
its  work  upon  him,  and  a  few  months  later  he  died.  His  was  a 
distinct  individuality  wherever  he  went. 

I  heard  him  once  talking  to  Mr.  Sharon.  It  was  when 
Mr.  Sharon  was  a  candidate  for  United  States  senator  and  he 
wanted  Mighels  to  support  or  fight  some  proposition.  I  do  not 
remember  what  it  was,  when  Mighels  refused. 

Sharon  at  last  told  him  that  he  was  too  poor  to  be  so  inde- 
pendent. "Poor,"  said  Mighels.  "You  ought  to  see  my  last 
baby.  Why,  I  am  richer  than  you  are."  Then  Sharon  told 
him  not  to  talk  like  a  d — d  fool.  "Was  I  talking  like  a  d — d 
fool?"  asked  Mighels.  "Of  course,  you  were,"  was  Sharon's 
reply.  Turning  to  me,  Mighels  said :  "Is  it  not  wonderful 
how  I  can  adjust  my  language  to  the  comprehension  of  some 
dull  men?" 

His  death  was  a  great  loss.  He  was  a  decided  genius, 
and  he  was  growing  mentally  every  day.  Had  he  survived 
but  a  few  years,  the  highest  places  would  have  been  open  to 
him.  and  he  would  have  filled  them,  filled  any  place  in  the  gift 
of  his  people,  with  wonderful  ability  and  perfect  integrity,  and 
with  a  courage  that  nothing  could  daunt.  Great  Harrv ;  poor 
Harry,  may  his  last,  long  sleep  be  sweet. 


17 


SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS- "MARK  TWAIN." 

MOST  of  the  intelligent  people  of  the  world  are  familiar 
with  the  personal  appearance  of  Mark  Twain,  as  he 
was  on  earth.  Of  medium  height  and  weight,  dark 
complexion,  eyes  and  hair  like  an  Indian,  a  strong,  expressive 
face,  a  beautiful  head,  as  a  man;  and  one,  who,  when  a  bab}', 
must  have  been  a  mother's  darling ;  and  as  she  held  him  to  her 
breast  she  fondly  believed  that  he  would  grow  up  to  be  not 
only  bright  and  respectable,  but  a  wonder  among  his  fellow- 
men.  I  have  an  idea  that  a  mother's  thought,  if  intense  enough, 
makes  its  impression  upon  the  child  before  or  after  birth,  and 
that  that  impression  lasts  and  in  a  measure  controls  the  child 
through  all  its  life.  And  I  am  ready  to  believe  that  what 
was  best  in  Mark  Twain  came  of  that  impression. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  in  squalor;  his  childhood  was 
so  pitiable  that  men  recoil  when  they  read  the  story  of  it. 
Through  one  fierce  winter  the  rude  house  in  which  he  lived  had 
but  three  sides  to  it,  the  fourth  was  open  to  the  pitiless  winds 
that  swept  across  the  Lidiana  prairies.  But  perhaps  it  was 
through  that  open  side  of  the  house  that  the  great  angel  came, 
and  noting  the  rude  cradle  within,  bent  and  touched  the 
lips  of  the  sleeping  child  with  the  sii^net  of  immortality.  But 
it  is  more  acceptable  to  believe  that  the  mother,  destitute  of  all 
other  treasures  save  that  baby,  so  yearned  with  love  about  it 
and  so  impressed  her  life  upon  it  that  as  the  years  went  by,  the 
fruition  of  those  hopes  was  reached  and  that  thus  the  man 
became  immortal. 

Mark  Twain  was  born  in  Florida,  Alonroe  county,  ]Mis- 
souri.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  was  different  from  the 
other  l^oys  around  him. 

Missouri  was  crude  in  many  ways  when  he  was  a  boy, 
but  it  had  great  old  forests  which  gave  out  nuts  and  wild  bees 
in  the  autumn,  and  there  were  fields  where  "roasting  ears," 
cantaloupes  and  watermelons  grew,  and  forest  and  field  sup-  ■ 
plied  plenty  of  joys  to  boyhood.     The  chances,  too,  are  that 


SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS— "MARK  TWAIN."     251 

Mark  fell  in  love  very  early,  and  possibly  that  event  of  his  life 
was  later  the  inspiration  of  "Tom  Sawyer."  Then  he  wan- 
tiered  off  to  the  big"  river  in  ^Missouri  and  by  a  sort  of  natural 
g"ra\'ity  we  hear  of  him  first  as  an  assistant  pilot  on  a  Missis- 
sippi steamboat.  Later,  I  believe,  he  became  a  real  pilot,  though 
an  old  man  has  been  reported  recently  as  saying  that  he  taught 
him  what  he  knew  as  a  ]iilot.  but  told  him  that  he  never  would 
be  a  good  one — that  he  was  too  funny. 

The  first  I  heard  of  him  was  when  he  began  to  write 
communications  for  the  Territorial  Enterprise,  published  in 
V^irginia  City,  and  his  communications  were  signed  "Mark 
Twain."  There  is  a  little  interim  between  the  time  that  he 
ceased  to  be  a  pilot  and  the  time  when  he  became  a  miner  in 
Nevada  that  I  cannot  connect  by  any  data  that  I  can  secure. 
It  was  whispered  that  early  in  1861  he  was  for  a  time  in  the 
Rebel  army.  It  is  possible  that  he  was  one  of  the  Missouri 
State  guards.  If  he  was,  he  grew^  tired  of  the  w^ork  pretty 
soon.  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  had  an  experience  like  another 
Missourian — a  learned  judge  that  I  once  knew.  He  told  me 
that  they  organized  a  Confederate  company  or  tw^o  in  St.  Joe, 
that  they  raised  the  Confederate  flag  over  the  courthouse,  and 
when  they  met  by  day  or  by  night  they  were  wont  to  say  to 
each  other,  "We  would  like  to  see  a  Yankee  army  try  to  lower 
that  flag."     Then  he  added: 

"One  morning  a  special  train  pulled  into  St.  Joe,  five 
companies  of  General  Lyon's  regular  soldiers  "detrained,"  and 
forming  in  column  marched  to  the  courthouse.  The  colonel 
in  command  detailed  a  lieutenant  to  go  up  and  take  down  the 
flag  and  substitute  the  American  flag.  It  was  done,  the  lieu- 
tenant returned  and  took  his  place.  Then,  by  order,  the  com- 
mand saluted  the  old  flag,  and  taking  the  Confederate  flag 
with  them,  marched  back  to  the  train,  boarded  it  and  pulled 
out  of  town." 

Then  he  said :  "We  looked  in  each  other's  faces.  None 
of  us  felt  like  going  up  and  taking  down  that  flag,  for  we  had 
seen,  though  on  a  small  scale,  the  real  flag,  borne  bv  real  sol- 
diers, under  real  discipline,  and  somehow  the  idea  came  into 
"ur  minds  that  we  were  not  very  much  warriors  after  all    and 


252  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

that  there  were  several  lessons  which  we  would  have  to  learn 
before  we  could  call  ourselves  thorough  veteran  soldiers,  irre- 
pressible and  invincible." 

Maybe  Mark  Twain  had  a  little  experience  like  that,  but 
that  is  mere  speculation.  I  know  nothing  about  it  except  that 
by  his  own  confession  he  was  once  a  Confederate  soldier. 

The  first  I  ever  heard  of  him  in  Nevada  was  after  the 
territory  was  organized.  James  W.  Nye  of  New  York  (the 
famous  Nye)  was  appointed  governor  and  Orion  Clemens,  a 
brother  of  Mark  Twain,  was  appointed  secretary  of  the  terri- 
tory. At  that  time  Carson,  the  capitol,  was  a  young  town.  The 
increase  in  houses  did  not  keep  up  with  the  increase  in  people. 
Most  of  the  houses  were  of  the  original  California  style — rude 
boards  outside,  and  the  partitions  made,  not  out  of  studding 
and  lath  and  plaster,  but  of  canvas  covered  with  paper,  which 
houses  had  the  disadvantage  of  taking  all  privacy  away  from 
the  occupants.  It  was  in  one  of  these  houses  that  Orion  Clem- 
ens was  installed  on  his  arrival  in  Carson.  His  room  was 
fitted  up  with  mahogany  or  black  walnut  furniture — ^black  wal- 
nut was  the  rage  in  those  days — and  there  one  day  the  occu- 
pants in  the  next  room  heard  a  man  come  into  the  secretary's 
office,  heard  him  push  a  chair  to  one  side,  heard  something 
very  much  like  what  is  heard  when  a  man  puts  his  feet  on 
the  table,  and  then  they  heard  a  drawling  voice  say: 

"You're  playin'  Hades  out  here.  Brother  Orion,  are  you 
not?  Fine  furniture,  fine  office,  everything.  But  they'll  drop 
on  you  after  a  while.  Brother  Orion.  They  will  find  out  about 
you,  about  half  as  much  as  I  know  now,  and  you'd  better  go 
back  to  your  oxen.   Oxen  are  your  strong  suit.  Brother  Orion." 

A\^ith  Nye,  when  he  came  from  New  York,  came  a  }-oung 
man  named  Robert  Howland.  He  was  one  of  those  "Don't- 
care-a-cent"  young  men,  ready  for  any  lark,  afraid  of  nothing 
in  the  world;  jolly,  cordial,  a  man  for  men  to  like  at  first 
sight  and  for  women  to  be  charmed  with.  He  and  ^lark 
Twain  soon  contracted  a  friendship  for  each  other,  and  when 
the  news  came  in  from  Aurora,  one  hundred  miles  south  of 
Carson,  of  the  great  discoveries  in  that  camp,  these  two  young 
men  formed  a  partnership  and  in  some  way  got  to  Aurora. 


SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS— "MARK  TWAIN."     253 

There  they  bought  or  built  a  rude  cabin  and  passed  the  cold 
winter  therein.  Years  later  Bob  used  to  tell  that  in  that  bleak 
winter  it  was  the  wont  of  Mark  Twain  and  himself  to  go  out 
at  night,  steal  the  empty  fruit  cans,  oyster  cans,  empty  cham- 
pagne bottles  and  bottles  that  once  held  booze,  from  the  rear 
of  saloons  and  boarding  houses,  carry  and  pile  them  up  in  the 
rear  of  their  own  cabin  to  give  it  an  opulent  look,  that  passers- 
by  in  the  daylight  might  say,  "My,  but  those  fellows  must  be 
flush  with  money!" 

As  the  Fourth  of  July  grew  near,  Mark  wrote  a  Fourth  of 
July  oration,  signed  it  "Mark  Twain,"  and  sent  it  to  the  local 
paper,  in  which  it  was  copied.  It  began  with  the  words,  "I 
was  sired  by  the  great  American  Eagle  and  borne  by  a  conti- 
nental dam."  This  struck  the  fancy  of  Joseph  T.  Goodman, 
the  owner  and  editor  of  the  Territorial  Enterprise  in  Virginia 
City,  and  he  wrote  to  Mark  that  if  he  was  not  making  more 
money  mining  than  he  would  as  local  reporter  on  the  Enter- 
prise, he  would  hold  a  place  for  him.  A  few  days  later,  when 
Mr.  Goodman  was  entertaining  some  friends  in  the  sanctum,  a 
man  walked  in,  shod  in  stogy  shoes,  wearing  Kentucky  jean 
pants,  a  hickory  shirt  and  a  straw  hat,  all  very  much  travel 
worn,  and  in  addition  had  a  roll  of  ancient  blankets  on  one 
shoulder.  He  shrugged  that  shoulder,  dropped  the  blankets, 
and  staring  from  one  man  to  another,  finally  drawled  out. 
"My  name  is  Clemens."  That  was  Mark's  introduction  to  real 
journalism  in  Nevada. 

But  in  a  few  days  Mark  was  clothed  and  in  his  right 
mind — and  just  here  a  word  about  his  nom  de  plume.  The 
most  authentic  account  that  we  have  of  it  was  Mark's  explana- 
tion that  a  bright  man  used  to  write  stories  in  New  Orleans 
and  sign  them  "Mark  Twain,"  and  when  the  man  died  Mark 
stole  the  nom  de  plume.  He  gave  other  reasons  during  his 
lifetime.  One  was  that  it  was  to  shorten  the  work  of  the  ter- 
ritorial legislature  of  Nevada  so  that  members  could  refer  tf) 
him,  not  as  "that  disreputable,  lying,  characterless,  character- 
smashing,  unscrupulous  fiend  who  reports  for  the  Territorial 
Enterprise,  but  as  'Mark  Twain'."  Another  story  was  that 
lie  c^t  it  from  a  roustabout  on  tlie  steamboat,  when  thev  were 


254 


'    AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


near  dangerous  banks  and  the  lead  had  to  be  thrown,  and  he 
would  report  ''jNIark  one"  or  "Mark  Twain."  It  is  no  matter 
whether  he  invented  it  or  stole  it,  he  wronged  no  one  else  and 
he  made  the  title  so  famous  that  thousands  know  it  who  do  not 
know  his  real  name. 

That  coming  to  the  Enterprise  was  the  making  of  Mark 
Twain.  I  doubt  very  much  whether  he  ever  would  have  been 
famous  at  all  except  for  his  experience  there.  He  found  an 
atmosphere  different  from  wdiat  he  ever  dreamed  of  being  in. 
The  office  was  filled  with  bright  men,  the  town  was  filled  with 
bright  men.  There  he  saw  men  that  had  made  fortunes  Cjuickly, 
others  who  were  trying  to  make  fortunes  quickly,  and  he  saw 
other  men  who  never  had  fortunes  and  never  expected  them. 
And  he  would  hear  them  rail  at  the  millionaires  and  say  that 
the  fact  that  they  had  money  was  a  sure  sign  of  how  little 
God  thought  of  money,  judging  by  the  men  he  gave  it  to.  R. 
M.  Daggett  was  on  the  Enterprise,  and  from  his  example  he 
learned  that  when  it  was  necessary  to  call  a  man  names,  there 
were  no  expleti\'es  too  long  or  too  expressive  to  be  hurled  in 
rapid  succession  to  emphasize  the  utter  want  of  character  of 
the  man  assailed.  Dan  De  Ouille  was  working  with  him,  too. 
He  used  to  write  famous  stories  on  almost  any  subject,  and 
he  knew  all  about  the  gift  of  using  adjectives.  It  was  con- 
tagious in  that  office.  It  reached  to  the  composing  room. 
There  were  typesetters  there  who  could  hurl  anathemas  at 
bad  copy  which  would  have  frightened  a  Bengal  tiger.  The 
news  editor  could  damn  a  mutilated  dispatch  in  twenty-four 
languages. 

There  w^as  a  compositor  named  Jim  Connely.  At  that 
time  the  Enterprise  was  a  six-day  newspaper.  Jim  used  to 
work  faithfully  through  the  week,  but  Saturday  night  he 
would  "load  up."  Sometimes  the  load  would  last  him  over 
Sunday,  and  w^hen  he  reached  the  office  Monday  morning  he 
was  a  little  trembly.  One  Monday  morning  he  tried  to  dis- 
tribute type  for  a  few  minutes,  but  laid  down  the  stick,  saying 
that  his  eyes  were  bad,  wondering  if  he  was  going  to  be  blind 
before  he  died,  and  thought  he  would  go  outside  and  take  a 
spin  around  the  block  and  see  if  he  would  not  feel  better.     He 


SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS— "MARK  TWAIN."     255 

did  so.  Probably  he  partook  of  three  or  four  jolts  while  going 
around  the  block,  for  when  he  came  back  and  picked  up  his 
composing  stick,  another  printer  asked  him  how  his  eyes  were. 
He  answered,  "Fine."  llie  rear  windows  of  the  Enterprise 
looked  over  the  lower  hills  and  out  upon  the  twenty-six  mile 
desert  beyond.  And  as  Jim  said,  "Fine!"  he  pointed  out  of 
a  window  and  said:  "Can  you  see  that  gray  wolf  on  the 
U      twenty-six  mile  desert?    I  see  him  plain." 

I  That  was  the  character  of  society  that  Mark  was  intro- 

I  duced  to,  and  outside  there  were  the  brightest  lawyers,  doc- 
tors and  the  shrewdest  men  of  affairs  in  the  world,  and  Mark 
got  pointers  from  them  all.     If  he  wrote  a  good  thing  they 

(would  praise  him  and  tell  him  to  keep  on,  that  there  was  some- 
thing in  him  sure.  If  Homer  nodded  with  him  sometimes  they 
would  hold  him  up  to  scorn  the  next  day;  but  he  noticed 
through  all  that  nothing  was  too  extravagant  for  them  in  the 
way  of  description,  and  nothing  too  fine. 

Mark  Twain  did  not  like  a  joke  a  bit  if  he  was  the  vic- 
tim. The  boys  of  the  Enterprise  ofifice  made  him  a  formal  pres- 
entation of  a  meerschaum  pipe.  He  was  exceedingly  pleased, 
but  when  he  found  next  day  that  he  could  buy  any  number  of 
such  pipes  at  $1.50  each,  it  filled  his  soul  with  a  desire  to  mur- 
der somebody,  and  he  did  not  outgrow  the  feeling  for  a  month. 

Wells  Fargo's  coach  was  robbed  of  $25,000  at  the  Mound 
House,  half  way  between  Virginia  City  and  Carson.  A 
week  later  some  of  the  wild  chaps  in  Virginia  City  held  u|) 
Mark  Twain  on  the  divide  between  Virginia  City  and  Gold 
Hill  and  took  his  watch  and  money.  He  thought  it  was  a 
genuine  hold-up,  and  decided  to  go  the  next  evening  to  San 
Francisco  for  a  brief  vacation.  As  he  was, sitting  in  the  coach 
in  front  of  the  International  Hotel  waiting  for  the  hour  of  de- 
])arture,  the  same  gang,  headed  by  George  Birdsall,  approached 
the  stage  and  passed  him  a  package  done  up  in  paper.  He 
tore  the  paper  open  and  saw  inside  his  watch,  and  realized  that 
his  robbery  was  all  a  fake,  and  with  his  drawl  said: 

"It  is  all  right,  gentlemen,  but  you  did  it  a  damn  sight 
too  well  for  amateurs.     Never  mind  this  little  dab  of  mine,  but 


256 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


what  did  you  do  witb  tlie  $25,000  that  you  took  from  Wel^.s 
Fargo  last  week?" 

He  was  in  San  Francisco  when  that  city  suffered  a  severe 
sliock  of  earthquake.  It  happened  one  Sabbath  morning  about 
ten  o'clock  and  Mark  wrote  a  description  of  it  to  the  Enter- 
prise. The  files  of  the  Enterprise  were  burned  and  the  letter, 
I  believe,  is  lost  to  all  the  world :  but  some  things  about  it 
seemed  to  me  at  the  time  about  the  j oiliest  writing  that  ever 
Mark  Twain  did.  I  believe  I  can  recall  a  few  paragraphs  of 
it  from  memory  almost  word  for  word.     He  said : 

"When  that  earthquake  came  on  Sunday  morning  last 
there  was  but  one  man  in  San  Francisco  that  showed  any  pres- 
ence of  mind,  and  he  was  over  in  Oakland.  He  did  just  what  I 
thought  of  doing,  what  I  would  have  done  had  I  had  any  op- 
portunity— he  went  down  out  of  his  pulpit  and  embraced  a 
woman.  The  newspapers  said  it  was  his  wife.  Maybe  it  was. 
but  if  it  was  it  was  a  pity.  It  would  have  shown  so  much 
more  presence  of  mind  to  have  embraced  some  other  gentle- 
man's wife. 

"A  young  man  came  down  from  the  fifth  story  of  a  house 
on  Stockton  street,  with  no  clothing  on  except  a  knitted  un- 
dershirt, which  came  about  as  near  concealing  his  person  as 
the  tin  foil  does  a  champagne  bottle.  Men  shouted  to  him, 
little  boys  yelled  at  him,  and  women  besought  him  to  take 
their  sunbonnets,  their  aprons,  their  hoop  skirts,  anything  in 
the  world  and  cover  himself  up  and  not  stand  there  distracting 
people's  attention  from  the  earthquake.  He  looked  all  around 
and  then  he  looked  down  at  himself,  and  then  he  went  upstairs. 
I  am  told  he  went  up  lively. 

"Pete  Hopkins  was  shaken  off  of  Telegraph  Hill,  and  on 
his  way  down  landed  on  a  three-story  brick  house  (Hopkins 
weighed  four  hundred  and  thirty  pounds),  and  the  papers, 
always  misrepresenting  things,  ascribed  the  destruction  of  the 
house  to  the  earthquake." 

And  so  the  letter  ran  on  and  on  for  a  column  and  a  half  of 
the  old,  long,  wide  columns  of  the  Enterprise,  and  every  line 
was  punctuated  with  fun. 

He  finallv  went  to  Honolulu  for  a  vacation.     There  he 


SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS— "MARK  TWAIN."     257 

completed  a  lecture  which  he  had  been  preparing,  and  return- 
ing to  San  Francisco,  delivered  it.  A  great  hit  was  in  the  ad- 
vertising, which  announced  that  the  doors  would  Ije  open  at 
7:30  o'clock  and  the  trouble  would  begin  at  eight.  A  little 
later  he  joined  an  excursion  party  to  the  Mediterranean  and 
its  shores,  from  which  he  wrote  the  famous  "Lmocents 
Abroad."  He  took  the  manuscript  to  a  portly  publisher  in  New 
York,  and,  throwing  it  down  on  his  desk  with  his  card,  said : 
"I'd  like  to  get  that  stuck  into  antimony."  (Types  are 
made  of  antimony.)  The  publisher  looked  at  the  manuscript, 
then  glanced  at  the  card,  then  looking  up  to  Mark,  said : 
"Who  are  your  references,  Mr.  Clemens?" 
He  replied :  "I  haven't  any  in  the  world.  There  are  only 
two  men  I  could  appH'  to.  One  is  Joe  Goodman,  the  other  is 
Jerry  Driscoll,  and  they  would  not  count,  because  they'd  lie 
for  me  just  as  I'd  lie  for  them." 

Since  then  the  world  has  known  the  history  of  Mark 
Twain.  As  I  said  above,  it  was  the  making  of  Mark  Twain 
to  go  to  work  on  the  Enterprise.  It  opened  a  new  world  to 
him.  All  his  life  before  he  had  been  mostly  with  ordinary 
people,  but  there  he  found  the  majority  of  people  were  bright  as 
dollars,  as  brave  as  lions,  all  alert,  all  generous,  all  ready  to 
give  credit  w-here  credit  was  due  and  none  afraid  to  criticise 
anybody  or  anything  else.  And  over  all  was  the  steadying 
influence  of  Mr.  Joseph  T.  Goodman,  the  owner  and  editor  of 
the  paper.  I  think  Mark  Twain  out  of  pure  gratitude  to  him 
should  have  left  him  a  part  of  his  fortune.  Goodman  himself 
is  as  brave  a  man  as  ever  lived,  a  thorough  journalist,  with 
magnificent  journalistic  judgment,  and  he  steadied  Mark 
through  the  years  and  was  Mark's  particular  inspiration.  In- 
deed, the  affection  of  Twain  for  Goodman  all  his  life  was 
made  clear  in  his  own  autobiography. 

When  he  went  east  and  his  first  book  came  out  and 
he  was  hailed  as  a  genius,  he  might  have  gone  to  the  dogs  had 
he  not  met  the  woman  who  became  his  wife  and  who  was  his 
salvation.  That  changed  the  whole  course  of  his  life,  awakened 
new  hopes,  changed  all  his  prospects ;  gave  him  to  see  how 
much   there  was  in  a  refined  life.     Then  when  he  made  his 


258 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THE^I. 


home  in  Hartford  and  all  his  associates  were  refined  and  edu- 
cated people,  the  change  from  his  former  life  was  an  epoch 
to  him ;  and  still  there  are  some  things  about  him  which  are  a 
mystery  to  those  who  knew  him  well.  There  is  no  evidence 
that  in  his  boyhood  he  was  fond  of  study  or  fond  of  literature : 
he  wrote  nothing  that  attracted  especial  attention  until  after 
he  was  thirty  years  of  age. 

It  is  not  strange  that  he  wrote  so  many  humorous  things, 
but  the  style  of  his  writing  is  a  perpetual  mystery.  \Miere  did 
he  get  that?  His  English  was  always  perfect,  and  it  was  of  a 
high  class  which  draws  readers  to  his  work  every  day. 

A\^e  wish  for  the  sake  of  his  fame  that  he  would  oftener 
have  done  what  Shakespeare  did — all  at  once  break  out  in  a 
dozen  lines  of  such  majesty  and  beauty  that  it  thrills  people 
and  always  will.  However,  his  fame  is  secure  enough ;  his 
work  was  a  distinct  addition  to  the  literature  of  the  United 
States.  But  could  some  one  have  followed  him  about  and  taken 
down  his  remarks  every  day  and  compiled  them  in  a  book, 
it  would  outsell  all  his  works,  for  he  was  funnier  everv  hour  in 
his  conversation  than  anything  he  ever  wrote. 

I  met  "Josh  Billings"  as  he  came  west  a  few  days  before 
he  died.  I  said :  "Of  course.  ^Mr.  Shaw,  vou  know  ^lark 
Twain?" 

"Oh,  yes."  was  the  reply.  "I  went  to  his  hotel  in  Xew 
York  last  week  to  see  him  and  was  told  that  he  was  over  in 
Jersey  lecturing,  but  would  be  back  about  midnight. 

"Mark  had  a  parlor  and  bed-room  and  out  of  the  parlor 
another  bed-room  opened.  They  gave  me  this  bed-room.  I 
retired,  leaving  the  door  open.  About  2  a.  m.  Mark  came  in. 
He  turned  up  the  gas,  came  to  my  bedside  and  said,  'Hello. 
Josh."  I  asked  him  where  he  had  been.  'Over  in  Jersev 
lecturing.'  was  his  answer.     I  asked  him  if  he  had  a  good  time. 

"\\'ith  a  look  of  sorrow,  he  said :  'Had  a  devil  of  a  time. 
Just  before  the  lecture  was  to  begin,  a  young  man  came  to  me 
and  asked  me  to  come  with  him.  He  led  me  to  where  there 
was  a  hole  in  the  drop  curtain,  and  with  much  emotion  said. 
'Please  look  through  this.  The  old  gentleman  with  the  white 
hair  to  the  left  of  the  center  ais^.e.  in  an  orchestra  chair,  is  mv 


SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS— "MARK  TWAIN."     259 

father.'  Then  with  a  gulp  he  explained  that  the  old  gentleman 
had  been  afflicted  with  a  settled  melancholy  for  a  long  time, 
and  that  if  I  could  say  anything  to  rouse  him  it  would  be  an 
immense  favor  to  the  whole  family.  I  said,  'All  right.'  The 
curtain  went  up  and  my  lecture  began.  After  two  or  three 
minutes  I  shot  a  joke  at  the  audience,  but  meant  it  for  the 
old  man.  It  didn't  faze  him.  A  little  later  I  tried  another 
joke  at  him;  it  didn't  faze  him.  Still  a  little  later  I  gathered 
myself  up  and  hurled  my  masterpiece  at  him.  The  audience 
yelled,  but  the  old  man  didn't  even  smile.  Then  I  thought 
that  I  could  not  devote  all  my  time  to  him,  that  something  was 
due  the  audience,  and  so  went  on  and  finished  my  lecture. 

"Then  the  young  man  came  and  in  a  soft  voice  inquired 
if  I  had  succeeded  in  arousing  the  interest  of  the  father. 

"  'Not  a  blamed  bit,'  I  replied.  'He  sat  there  as  though 
he  did  not  hear  a  word.' 

"  'I  guess  he  didn't,'  said  the  Reuben.  'A  powder  mill 
explosion  twenty  years  ago  smashed  the  drums  in  his  ears 
and  since  then  he  has  been  as  deaf  as  a  post.'  Here  Mark 
added,  'xA.nd  I  had  no  weapons'." 

When  the  Lusitania  first  came  to  New  York,  he  was  in- 
vited aboard  the  great  ship  and  shown  around.  When  the 
inspection  was  over,  he  casually  remarked  that  he  would  tell 
Noah  about  that  ship. 

I  hope  he  has  found  Noah  now,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  "old 
bovs"  that  have  gone  over  on  the  other  side;  and  if  he  has,  I 
predict  that  whether  it  is  up  above  or  down  below,  a  ripple  of 
laughter  will  follow  his  footsteps  in  either  place  through  all 
eternity. 


JUDGE  R.  S.  MESICK. 

THREE  SCORE  years  ago  a  man  who  possessed  $200,000 
was  considered  very  rich.  When  the  Comstock  was 
discovered  and  it  seemed  to  be  pitching  to  the  west,  the 
hillside  below  the  great  lode  to  the  east  was  covered  with  loca- 
tions wherever  there  were  croppings  of  ore.  When  suddenly 
at  a  depth  of  about  two  hundred  feet  the  Comstock  was  found 
broken  off,  and  with  a  little  sinking,  and  drifting  to  the  east 
found  again,  pitching  to  the  east,  then  the  question  at  once 
arose  as  to  the  titles  on  the  surface  hillside. 

The  claim  of  those  on  the  lode  was  that  with  their  location 
they  had  a  right  to  trace  the  vein  wherever  it  pitched,  west  or 
east.  Then  there  were  such  pitched  legal  contests  created  as 
had  never  been  known.  The  fees  paid  to  attorneys  were  such 
as  had  never  been  paid  before,  and  that  naturally  drew  to  the 
Comstock  an  array  of  attorneys  more  able  than  had  ever  been 
gathered  together. 

Perhaps  General  Charles  S.  Williams  was  the  Nestor  of 
them  all.  He  had  been  a  great  lawyer  and  attorney  general  in 
New  York.  But  around  him  was  an  assemblage  of  attorneys, 
all  of  whom  were  great.  We  may  name  such  men  as  C.  J. 
Hillier,  Thomas  ^^'illiams,  Moses  Kirkpatrick,  Wm.  M.  Stew- 
art, Judge  Joseph  Baldwin,  who  had  made  a  great  reputation 
in  Alabama  before  he  went  to  California;  his  son,  Judge 
"Sandy"  Baldwin,  C.  E.  DeLong,  Horace  Smith,  Jonas  Seeley, 
Sunderland,  Crittenden,  Mitchel,  Aldrich,  Hundley,  Judge  Cy 
Wallace,  John  B.  Felton  and  a  score  more. 

But  the  first  obstacle  was  the  courts.  The  United  States 
courts  were  made  up  as  a  rule  of  broken-down  politicians,  sent 
west  to  pay  political  debts  or  to  get  rid  of  their  importunities. 
They  were  in  a  strange  field ;  questions  that  had  never  been 
submitted  to  courts  before  were  before  them.  In  a  legal  way. 
as  a  rule,  they  were  utterly  incompetent,  and  a  great  many  of 
them  were  corrupt.  The  brightest  one  of  them  all  in  a  little 
while  got  to  selling  his  opinions;  and  worse  still,  a  little  later 


JUDGE  R.  S.  MESICK.  261 

he  got  to  selling"  out  to  both  sides,  which  was  a  sure  sign,  under 
the  ruling  of  Zinc  Barnes,  that  he  must  be  a  little  crooked,  be- 
cause Zinc's  definition  of  an  honest  man  was  "a  son-of-a-gun 
who  would  stay  bought." 

The  suits  were  multiplied,  the  courts  were  far  behind, 
and  it  was  a  pitiable  spectacle  to  see  those  great  attorneys  try- 
ing to  get  a  little  information  through  the  brains  of  those  in- 
competent judges.  The  situation  was  one  of  the  impelling 
causes  that  led  to  making  Nevada  a  state  before  it  had  either 
a  population  or  developed  wealth  to  entitle  it  to  statehood. 
But  the  state  was  admitted,  and  R.  S.  Mesick  stooped  down 
to  accept  a  district  judgeship  that  he  might  help  clear  the  cal- 
endars and  get  the  court  running  on  a  legitimate  basis. 

Just  as  Judge  Mesick  had  finished  his  regular  course  in 
Yale  and  afterwards  at  the  law  department  of  Yale  he  joined 
the  Argonauts  who  went  to  California.  He  located  in  Marys- 
ville.  In  those  days  Marysville  had  a  wonderful  bar.  Judge 
Stephen  J.  Field,  who  afterwards  sat  more  than  thirty-three 
years  as  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
was  practicing  law  there.  There  were  many  other  great  law- 
yers. 

Mesick's  legal  abilities  were  acknowledged  at  once,  but 
in  those  days  he  was  a  little  shy,  due  perhaps  to  a  lingering 
provincialism  which  made  him  rather  think  that  with  his  ac- 
complishments and  his  training  he  had  a  certain  dignity  to 
maintain.  In  those  days  he  was  as  good  a  lawyer  as  Judge  Field 
and  practiced  law  in  Marysville  until  the  Comstock  was  dis- 
covered. 

When  he  w^ent  upon  the  bench  in  Virginia  City  he  was 
surrounded  by  more  temptations  than  ever  a  judge  was  before ; 
but  he  so  bore  himself  in  that  office  that  when  his  short  term 
was  out,  he  had  the  full  respect  of  all  the  bar  and  of  all  the 
people.  Beyond  that  it  was  plain  to  the  bar  and  to  the  people 
that  he  was  about  the  greatest  man  that  ever  gave  the  best  years 
of  his  life  to  the  golden  coast.  He  was  not  only  as  great  a 
lawyer  as  Field,  but  he  possessed  elements  of  statesmanship 
which  were  denied  Justice  Field. 

In  Nevada  liis  exclusiveness  wore  away.     Some  people 


262 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


had  called  that  exclusiveness  pride,  but  really  it  was  but  a  dig- 
nity which  he  held  to  be  due  his  profession,  mixed  with  a  little 
natural  shyness,  and  while  he  mellowed  down,  he  maintained 
that  dignity  to  the  very  end.  Tlu'ough  his  friction  against  men 
on  the  Comstock,  he  took  on  Hie  wisdomto  note  that  all  around 
him  in  every  walk  of  life,  were  intellectual  giants;  that  in  the 
original  elements  into  wdiich  society  was  there  resolved,  the 
brightest  brain  could  only  aspire  to  be  an  equal  and  not  a  su- 
perior. And  he  was  surrounded  by  brains,  some  of  which  were 
cleavers  and  battle  axes,  some  Damascus  blades,  and  in  the 
wielding  of  those  weapons  they  were  all  trained  until  they  had 
become  real  gladiators.  There  were  trials  in  which  a  spec- 
tator saw  only  flashings  of  great  lights ;  there  were  argu- 
ments which  Burke  would  have  listened  to  enchanted ;  there 
were  bursts  of  legal  elocjuence  which  would  have  charmed  Clay 
or  Prentiss.     It  was  an  arena  where  giants  contested. 

In  that  arena,  wdiether  on  the  bench  or  at  the  bar,  Judge 
Mesick  was  a  captain.  No  subtlety  could  jostle  him  into  mak- 
ing a  weak  ruling ;  no  artifice  could  prepare  an  argument  that 
he  could  not  seize  and  puncture  if  within  it  there  was  one 
weak  point  or  false  principle  embodied. 

But  it  was  not  only  as  a  lawyer  and  jurist  that  he  was 
great.  Had  he  remained  in  the  east  and  married  some  woman 
great  enough  and  true  enough  to  have  held  up  his  strong  arms, 
there  could  not  have  been  a  place  so  high  that  he  might  not 
have  justly  aspired  to  attain  it.  He  would  have  been  rated 
the  peer  of  the  very  highest ;  as  scholar,  lawyer,  judge,  orator, 
statesman. 

But  the  customs  of  the  coast  had  their  influence  upon  him. 
H^e  was  not  free  from  some  human  weaknesses.  Moreover, 
down  deep  he  was  one  of  the  most  lovable  and  genial  of  men. 
Despite  his  reserve  he  would,  could  he  have  had  his  way,  "have 
lived  by  the  road,"  where  he  would  have  met  his  fellow-men, 
met  them  wnth  their  virtues  and  faults  and  affiliated  with  them 
all. 

He  was  altogether  a  manly  man.  even  when  he  gave  way 
to  his  weaknesses.  The  divinity  within  him  shone  out  always, 
the  same  under  the  light  of  a  tallow  dip  as  under  an  electric 


JUDGE  R.  S.  MESICK.  263 

chandelier.  He  had  courage  that  never  failed  him,  he  had  in- 
tegrity and  self-respect  and  respect  for  his  profession  that 
nothing  could  turn  aside. 

A  very  rich  man,  on  one  occasion  stated  to  him  the  points 
of  a  case  and  asked  him  if  he  could  win  it  in  court.  His  answer 
was : 

"I  might,  but  I  will  not  try." 

"Why  not?"  asked  the  man.  "You  are  iiot  very  rich  and 
there  are  thousands  of  dollars  in  this  for  you  if  you  will  under- 
take it." 

"But  I  will  not,"  said  Mesick. 

"And  why  not?'  asked  the  would-be  client. 

"Because  it  is  a  dishonest  proposition ;  because  you  are 
hoping  through  the  power  of  your  money  to  perpetrate  a  great 
wrong,  to  accomplish  which  you  would  have  to  prostitute  the 
profession  of  the  law  and  disgrace  the  court.  I  will  not  be  a 
party  to  it." 

Then  the  man  flared  up  and  intimated  that  there  was  a 
great  difference  between  his  own  friendship  or  enmity.  To  this 
Mesick  merely  pointed  to  the  door  and  said : 

"Get  out,  and  do  not  stand  on  the  order  of  your  going,  but 
go  at  once!" 

Half  an  hour  later  he  looked  up  from  his  desk  and  said  to 
his  clerk : 

"I  am  mad  through  and  through  at  myself." 

"What  for?"  asked  the  clerk. 

And  he  replied :  "That  I  did  not  kick  that  scoundrel  out 
of  this  office  and  all  of  the  way  down  the  street." 

He  lived  sixteen  years  in  Virginia  City,  then  removed  to 
San  Francisco,  where  he  died  in  1897  or  '98.  He  died  worth 
only  a  few  thousand  dollars,  though  in  a  single  case — the  Fair 
divorce  case — he  received  a  fee  of  $200,000. 

The  grievous  thing  is  that  such  a  man  was  never  known 
outside  the  few  who  were  close  to  him, when,  had  he  had  a  little 
different  nature,  had  he  had  more  desire  for  selfish  glory,  he 
might  have  stood  with  the  very  highest.  Never  on  this  coast, 
ne\-er  anywhere,  was  there  a  more  clear-cut  mind,  a  more  ac- 
complished man  in  books  and  in  his  profession.    While  he  min- 


264    .  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

gled  with  his  fellow-men  on  terms  of  equality,  he  at  the  same 
time  moved  in  a  sphere  of  his  own.  He  was  a  glorified  scholar 
until  the  last.  When  the  world  got  to  be  a  burden  to  him,  he 
could  go  to  his  library  and  commune  with  all  of  the  orreat  souls 
that  had  preceded  him  in  this  world,  only  when  he  read  the 
great  thoughts,  they  always  haunted  him ;  a  thought  of  his  own 
was  that  what  he  read  w^as  not  new,  that  such  thoughts  had 
been  his  familiars  all  his  life. 

He  should  have  gone  to  the  senate  from  Nevada ;  he 
should  have  gone  with  Senator  Stewart.  That  body  would 
have  recognized  in  a  moment  that  a  master  had  come,  and  the 
brightest  of  them  would  have  fought  shy  of  an  encounter 
with  him. 

He  was  surrounded  by  great  souls,  but  his  surroundings 
were  never  what  they  should  have  been.  He  never  could 
have  found  any  array  of  intellects  that  he  would  not  have  stood 
a  peer  among;  he  never  could  have  found  a  class  of  men  that 
could  have  been  his  schoolmasters.  His  brain  was  acute :  it 
either  held  all  the  knowdedge  in  the  world,  or  an  open  door  to 
all  the  knowledge  in  the  world ;  and  if  his  thoughts  had  been 
directed  away  from  the  fierce  encounters  which  were  met  on  the 
Comstock  and  led  up  into  the  heights  of  literature  or  of  states- 
ntanship,  he  would  have  been  at  home. 

He  died  of  bronchitis,  and  shortly  before  his  death,  when 
a  friend  bending  over  him  sympathized  wnth  his  great  suffer- 
ings, and  after  the  medical  men  around  him  had  tried  every 
way  to  soothe  his  pain,  his  friend  spoke  to  him  of  his  ap- 
proaching death.  And  he  answered,  with  a  faint  smile  on 
his  lips : 

"Death  will  be  a  cure  for  the  sufferings  I  am  bearing 
now." 

We  hope  that  rest  has  come  to  him  and  that  in  the  sphere 
where  his  soul  has  found  an  abiding  place,  there  wall  be  con- 
genial spirits  enough  of  the  very  highest,  to  take  away  from 
him  all  regret  that  he  was  called  so  soon  from  the  earth. 


GENERAL  P.  E.  CONNOR. 

GENERAL  PATRICK  EDWARD  CONNOR  was  a 
very  splendid  soldier.  He  fought  through  three  wars. 
Every  moment  of  fifty  years  he  held  his  life,  fortune 
and  sacred  honor  subject  to  his  country's  call.  His  best  ser- 
vices were  perhaps  in  Utah. 

It  is  said  that  the  society  which  has  the  building  of  a 
monument  to  him  in  charge,  is  at  Avork.  Everyone  in  Utah 
should  invest  at  least  one  dollar  in  the  monument.  Some  men 
fight  when  they  have  to :  some  men  fight  when  a  fight  comes 
to  them :  now  and  then  a  man  goes  out  after  a  fight.  General 
Connor  was  one  of  the  latter  class. 

He  was  born  near  the  lakes  of  Killarney  in  Kerry  county, 
a  spot  which  has  some  reputation  in  the  world ;  and  one  of  the 
things  that  it  is  renowned  for  is  that  there  is  not  a  living  thing 
in  that  county — man,  woman,  horse,  dog,  chicken — anything, 
that  won't  fight. 

He  was  born  there  March  17,  1820,  on  St.  Patrick's  day, 
and  when  but  a  child  he  was  brought  by  his  parents  to  New 
York  City. 

^^'hen  nineteen  years  of  age,  in  1839,  the  Florida  war  was 
in  progress.  We  suspect  that  at  that  time  he  had  no  fixed 
idea  of  just  where  Florida  was,  but  he  heard  there  was  a  fight 
tliere  and  volunteered. 

He  served  in  the  army  five  years,  to  November,  1844. 
Early  in  1846  he  moved  to  Texas  and  when  the  same  year  the 
Mexican  war  broke  out,  he  joined  a  regiment  of  Texas  vol- 
unteers, of  which  Albert  Sidney  Johnston  was  colonel.  He 
was  the  second  volunteer  ofiicer  mustered  into  service  in  that 
regiment,  and  he  entered  as  a  captain. 

He  was  in  the  battles  of  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca  de  la  Palma, 
and  was  one  of  the  immortal  4500  men  who  confronted  Santa 
Ana's  army  of  22,000  men  on  that  day  of  days  at  Buena  Vista. 

He  fought  all  day,  although  he  was  the  first  officer 
wounded  in  the  battle.     But  that  night  he  had  lost  so  much 

18 


266 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


blood  that  two  of  his  comrades  had  to  lie  close  to  him  on  either 
side  through  the  night  to  keep  him  from  dying  from  cold  and 
exhaustion. 

For  his  work  on  that  day  he  was  given  a  captain's  full 
pension. 

Shortly  after  the  war  closed  he  passed  through  Mexico 
and  reached  California  on  January  22,  1850.  A  little  after  his 
reaching  there,  great  excitement  was  raised  over  gold  discov- 
eries on  Trinity  River.  At  that  time  it  was  believed  that  Trin- 
ity River  flowed  into  the  Pacific,  and  acting  on  that  belief, 
Connor  with  some  naval  officers  and  sailors  went  up  the  coast 
to  find  the  mouth  of  Trinity  River.  Seeing  a  boat,  they  tried 
to  reach  it.  ■  Some  were  drowned  in  the  breakers,  the  rest 
reached  the  boat  that  they  had  seen  in  the  offing,  and  found  it 
to  be  the  Farragiit.  They  learned  from  those  on  board  that 
Trinity  River  did  not  empty  into  the  sea. 

In  the  next  spring  Captain  Connor  tried  again  to  reach 
the  same  stream.  He  reached  Humboldt  Bay,  cut  a  trail 
through  the  Redwoods  and  took  his  party  at  last  to  the  banks 
of  the  Trinity  River.  With  a  small  boat  he  learned  the  currents 
and  eddies  and  shoals  of  Humboldt  Bay,  and  for  awhile  served 
as  a  pilot. 

In  1854  Captain  Connor  was  married  to  Johanna  Connor, 
then  a  resident  of  Redwood  City,  but  who  was  a  native  of  the 
same  county  the  Captain  was  born  in. 

In  October  of  that  year,  he  was  appointed  postmaster 
of  Stockton,  California.  He  was  serving  at  the  same  time  as 
adjutant  of  the  Second  brigade  and  Captain  of  the  Stockton 
Blues. 

He  lived  a  very  rugged  life  in  Stockton.  That  was  a 
center  of  some  very  determined  Southern  men.  Judge  Terry's 
home  was  there,  and  there  were  a  great  many  others  :  and  as  the 
war  drew  near,  the  feeling  ran  very  high,  and  Captain  Connor 
was  a  mark  of  especial  detestation  by  some  of  those  men.  His 
life  was  a  hundred  times  threatened  and  he  walked  those  streets 
day  and  night  for  two  or  three  years  when  he  was  not  certain 
that  he  would  live  a  minute.  But  he  was  always  resolute  for 
the  government  and  the  Union  and  courted  rather  than  avoided 


GENERAL  P.  E.  CONNOR.  267 

danger.  He  established  and  owned  the  Stockton  waterworks 
and  was  drawing  from  that  $8,000  a  year  and  had  a  contract 
for  building  the  foundation  of  the  state  capitol  at  Sacramento. 
He  was  released  from  that,  however,  by  the  legislature  of 
1861-2,  being  ordered  to  report  with  his  command. 

When  the  Civil  war  broke  out  he  tendered  his  services  at 
once  to  the  governor  of  California,  who  appoined  him  colonel 
of  the  Third  California  infantry.  His  command  was  stationed 
at  Benicia  barracks,  California,  during  the  winter  of  '61  and 
'62,  pending  a  transfer  to  Utah,  where  the  command  was 
ordered,  to  the  great  disappointment  of  the  volunteers,  who 
expected  to  be  sent  south. 

In  May,  1862,  Colonel  Connor  and  his  regiment,  embrac- 
ing 850  men,  consisting  of  the  Second  California  infantry  and 
four  companies  of  the  Second  California  cavalry,  started  on 
foot  for  Utah. 

He  issued  a  bulletin  to  his  soldiers  when  the  march  began, 
full  of  patriotic  fervor  and  in  splendid  form. 

They  marched  over  the  Sierras,  then  on  through  Nevada 
to  a  camping  place  in  Ruby  valley.  Here  the  men  became  very 
restless — they  wanted  to  go  south.  They  offered  all  the  money 
they  had,  some  agreed  to  forfeit  all  their  pay  if  they  could  be 
permitted  to  go  south,  and  Colonel  Connor  sent  a  petition  to 
General  Halleck,  secretary  of  war,  begging  to  be  permitted  to 
go  and  offering  to  pay  their  own  passage  from  San  Francisco 
to  Panama.  But  they  were  ordered  to  continue  on  to  Utah, 
and  on  the  24th  of  October,  1862,  they  marched  through  Salt 
Lake  City,  stopping  while  the  band  played  in  front  of  the  house 
of  the  governor,  and  then  marched  on  to  the  spot  which  is  now 
the  site  of  Fort  Douglas. 

They  were  threatened  with  destruction  before  they 
reached  Salt  Lake,  but  it  made  no  difference.  The  threats 
came  from  no  authentic  sources  and  they  continued  their 
march. 

In  February,  1863,  the  Indians  being  very  troublesome  in 
the  Bear  River  country.  General  Connor  took  the  main  portion 
of  his  command  and  marched  up  there.  The  weather  was 
fearfully  cold,  dropping  to  ten  degrees  before  they  had  been 


268 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


out  a  day.  The  command  consisted  of  company  K,  Third 
infantry,  California  volunteers,  Captain  Hoyt,  two  howitzers, 
under  command  of  Lieutenant  Huntington ;  twelve  men  of  the 
Second  California  cavalry,  with  a  train  of  fifteen  wagons,  con- 
taining twelve  days'  supplies  to  proceed  on  the  22nd  of  Jan- 
uary; and  the  colonel  himself  followed  with  detachments  of 
companies  A,  H,  K  and  M,  Second  California  cavalry;  Sur- 
geon Reed,  Third  California  Volunteers ;  Captain  McLean, 
and  Price,  and  Lieutenants  Chase,  Clark,  Ouinn  and  Conrad, 
Second  California  cavalry.  Major  Gallagher,  Third  California 
infantry,  and  Captain  Berry,  Second  California  cavalry,  went 
as  volunteer  aides,  leaving  Colonel  George  S.  Evans  in  com- 
mand at  Camp  Douglas. 

They  found  the  Indians  in  a  very  strong  position,  and 
after  a  fierce  engagement  of  twenty  minutes,  finding  it  was 
impossible  to  dislodge  them  without  great  loss  of  life.  Major 
McGary,  with  twenty  men,  was  ordered  to  turn  their  left  flank, 
which  was  in  the  ravine  where  it  entered  the  mountain.  Shortly 
afterwards  Captain  Hoyt  reached  the  Bear  river  ford,  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  distant,  but  found  it  impossible  to  cross  the 
men  on  foot.  A  detachment  of  cavalry  was  ordered  to  cross, 
and  a  little  later  ]\Iajor  McGary 's  fianking  party  turned  the 
enemy's  flank. 

Up  to  that  time  the  Indians  were  under  cover  and  had 
much  the  advantage  of  the  fighting,  and  did  fight  with  the 
ferocity  of  tigers.  But  the  flanking  party  was  ordered  to  ad- 
vance down  the  ravine  on  either  side,  which  caused  the  Indians 
to  give  way. 

The  fight  commenced  at  6  in  the  morning,  and  continued 
until  10.  At  the  commencement  of  the  battle  the  hands  of 
some  of  the  men  were  so  benumbed  with  cold  that  it  was  with 
difficulty  they  could  load  their  pieces.  They  suffered  terribly 
during  the  march,  and  not  less  than  seventy-five  of  the  men 
had  their  feet  frozen,  some  of  them  being  crippled  for  life.  The 
colonel  bestowed  particular  praise  upon  Major  ]\IcGary.  }kIajor 
Gallagher  and  Surgeon  Reed,  and  indeed  he  had  only  good 
words  for  his  whole  command.  Eighteen  of  his  soldiers  were 
killed,  forty-five  were  wounded,  and  seventy-six  confined  to  the 


GENERAL  P.  E.  CONNOR.  269 

hospitals  from  being  frozen,  making  the  casualties  one  hundred 
and  forty-three. 

It  made  peace  with  the  northern  Indians  which  was 
never  after  broken. 

Later  in  the  war,  when  the  colonel  was  promoted  to  gen- 
eral because  of  his  services,  he  was  offered  a  high  place  in  the 
army,  but  he  preferred  with  the  close  of  the  war  to  give  up  his 
army  life  to  devote  himself  to  mining.  He  mined  in  Utah  and 
Nevada,  and  he  continued  his  work  up  to  within  a  few  weeks 
of  his  death. 

He  gave  a  detail  of  soldiers  leave  of  absence  to  go  pros- 
pecting, and  they  found  the  mines  in  Bingham. 

He  died  in  Salt  Lake  City,  and  was  given  a  splendid  mil- 
itary funeral,  with  Colonel  Rose  in  command. 

He  earned  the  name  of  being  aboCit  the  best  Indian  fighter 
in  the  army.  He  was  a  fine  soldier,  but  his  patriotism  was 
superior  to  all  his  other  traits.  He  was  one  of  those  men  who 
held  his  life  at  the  service  of  his  country  every  moment  from 
the  time  he  enlisted  in  the  Florida  war  until  he  laid  down  his 
Hfe  in  this  city.  He  did  a  splendid  work  in  L^tah.  He  w^as 
not  verv  successful  in  business  here,  because  his  whole  soul 
was  that  of  a  soldier. 

Born  in  a  foreign  land,  not  much  accomplished  in  the 
schools,  coming  to  this  country  a  poor  emigrant,  at  the  first 
call  he  offered  his  life,  and  that  offer  remained  open  until  he 
died.  From  an  obscure  foreign-born  boy,  by  his  own  merits  he 
rose  until  the  stars  of  a  major-general  glittered  on  his  shoul- 
ders. He  was  a  gifted  soldier.  His  courage  was  immeasurable. 
His  love  for  his  adopted  country  was  a  grand  passion.  He 
did  the  work  appointed  for  him  to  do  perfectly,  and  he  sank 
to  rest  with  "all  his  countrv's  honors  blest." 


MARCUS  DALY. 

MARCUS  DALY  graduated  from  the  Comstock.  took  a 
post  graduate  course  in  Utah,  then  went  to  Butte, 
Montana,  to  win  his  degrees.  And  he  won  them  all. 
I  do  not  know  his  career  before  he  reached  the  Comstock,  but 
it  was  there  that  he  first  comprehended  what  a  great  mine  was 
and  what  great  mining  was.  He  took  it  in  fully,  by  actual  prac- 
tice mastered  every  detail,  and  I  suspect  it  was  in  the  depths, 
down  among  the  gnomes,  that  an  unspoken  determination 
came  to  him  to  rival  the  best  that  had  been  accomplished 
there,  if  he  could  but  find  a  field  big  enough  to  expand  in. 

He  removed  to  Utah  and  did  some  fine  mining  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  state,  and  it  was  there  he  made  the  greatest 
strike  of  his  life — he  found  and  won  the  wife  that  was  his 
life  and  light  even  until  his  final  call. 

I  think  he  contemplated  securing  the  Ontario  for  a  while. 
Had  he,  doubtless  he  would  have  been  the  inspiration  and 
financially  the  king  of  Parley's  Park,  but  the  Ophir  and  Gould 
and  Curry  and  Gold  Hill  croppings  were  in  his  thoughts, 
and  he  reasoned  that  a  big  mine  must  have  a  great  outcrop,  so 
he  advised  Craig  Chambers  to  look  after  the  Ontario  while 
he  went  for  the  AA^alker  Brothers  to  Butte  to  open  the  Alice 
]\Iine. 

There  he  grasped  the  outlines  of  the  Anaconda  mine  and 
watched  all  that  was  done  toward  exploring  it  until  his  im- 
pressions of  it  deepened  into  conviction  and  then  he  obtained 
an  option  upon  it. 

He  knew  George  Hearst  and  through  him  Haggin  and 
Tevis  of  San  Francisco.  He  went  to  them  and  laid  his  plans 
before  them,  gave  them  frankly  his  belief  that  the  mine  would 
prove,  when  fully  developed,  a  wonder  of  the  world,  but  ex- 
plained that  it  was  a  long  distance  from  cheap  and  rapid  trans- 
portation and  that  to  buy  it,  develop  it  into  working  form 
would  require  a  good  deal  of  money,  a  vast  amount  of  money, 
a  mint  of  money,  giving  increased  emphasis  to  each  statement. 


MARCUS  DALY.  271 

Old  man  Hagg-in,  next  to  William  Sharon,  the  shrewd- 
est and  gamest  and  boldest  of  all  the  then  rich  men  on  the 
coast,  was  impressed  with  the  description  of  the  property,  but 
more  impressed  with  the  frankness  and  dash  of  Mr.  Daly,  and 
told  him  that  the  money  he  needed  for  a  starter  was  ready  for 
him,  and  when  that  was  gone  to  draw  for  more  and  to  keep 
drawing. 

Then  the  little  chief  returned  to  Butte  and  began  his  real 
work. 

I  saw  him  there  in  1881  and  he  said  to  me  that  the  world 
did  not  know  it,  but  it  would  after  a  while  learn  that  he  had 
the  biggest  mine  ever  found.  He  worked  on  its  development 
for  two  years,  expending  vast  sums  of  money,  and  then  wrote 
to  Haggin  and  Tevis  that  he  needed  further  funds,  but 
that  he  would  not  draw  for  another  dollar  until  one  or  both 
came  to  Butte  and  saw  what  he  had  done  with  the  money  he 
had  drawn,  and  what  use  he  had  for  more. 

Mr.  Haggin  went  to  Butte  and  spent  several  days  in  exam- 
ining the  mine  and  the  contemplated  reduction  works,  and 
then  said : 

"Daly,  you  make  me  a  vast  amount  of  trouble.  I  am  get- 
ting old,  but  you  drag  me  up  here,  race  me  through  your  mine 
workings  for  days  and  give  me  your  ideas  of  what  yet  remains 
to  be  done,  and  the  whole  business  was  unnecessary. 

"The  property  is  bigger  than  you  led  me  to  believe,  which 
I  suspected  was  the  truth  before  I  left  home ;  you  have  shown 
me  where  all  the  money  has  gone  which  I  was  confident  I 
should  find;  indeed  I  cannot  see  how  you  could  do  the  work 
with  so  little  money,  and  you  tell  me  what  is  needed,  which  is 
clear  enough,  but  I  am  no  better  satisfied  than  I  was  before  I 
left  home,  and  so  all  this  work  of  mine  has  been  useless.  Here- 
after please  keep  in  mind  what  I  told  you  when  we  first  began 
this  enterprise :  when  you  need  money  draw,  and  keep  draw- 
ing." 

So  the  work  went  on  and  began  to  pay.  Then  there  came 
a  crisis.  Copper  began  to  fall  in  price  and  the  percentage  of 
copper  in  the  rock  began  to  decrease  at  the  same  time,  until 
the  margin  of  profit  left  after  deducting  expenses  became  most 


272 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


dangerously  small.  Moreover,  the  deeper  explorations  in  the 
mine  made  clear  that  low-grade  copper  was  thenceforth  to  be 
the  rule.  Something  had  to  be  done.  Fortunately  the  ore 
bodies  increased  in  magnitude.  That  gave  Mr.  Daly  an  idea. 
He  said  to  a  friend  who  was  an  old  gold  quartz  miner:  "If  a 
five-stamp  mill  is  running  on  five  dollar  rock,  how  much  does 
it  make  a  day?" 

The  friend  replied :  "A  five  stamp  mill  ought  to  crush 
from  twelve  and  a  half  to  fifteen  tons  of  ore  daily.  If  the  rock 
is  favorable,  it  will  crush  fifteen  tons.  To  mine  and  mill  it 
generally  costs  from  $2.00  to  $2.25  per  ton.  If  90  per  cent  is 
saved  that  leaves  about  $2.25  to  $2.50  per  ton  profit,  or  on 
fifteen  tons  $34  or  $35  per  day;  but  everything  has  to  be  favor- 
able to  produce  that  result." 

"Then  if  the  ore  becomes  rebellious,  or  a  heavy  volume  of 
water  is  encountered,  or  the  machinery  is  faulty,  there  is  not 
much  left,  is  there?"  asked  Marcus. 

The  friend  replied  :  "Not  much  :  and  often  the  most  care- 
ful management  cannot  keep  even." 

"I  thought  so,"  said  Marcus,  "but  if  the  mine  is  big 
enough  to  produce  1,000  tons  per  day,  how  then?" 

"Why,  at  least  $1.50  profit  per  ton  should  be  saved,  which, 
you  see,  in  a  year  of  300  working  days,  would  mean  nearly 
half  a  million,"  said  the  friend. 

'T  thought  so,"  said  Marcus. 

That  night  he  called  in  his  mechanical  engineers,  and 
laying  before  them  the  outlines  of  certain  machinery  which  he 
wanted  for  the  mine  and  for  the  reduction  works,  asked  them 
to  bring  him  the  estimate  of  what  it  would  all  cost  as  soon  as 
possible. 

Then  he  said  to  Otto  Stalmann,  who  was  with  him :  "I 
want  you  to  give  me  an  estimate  of  what  your  expenses  would 
be  to  go  to  Europe,  visit  all  the  copper  reduction  and  refining 
plants  there,  which  I  take  it  wall  require  a  year's  time,  and  see 
if  you  can  find  something  through  which  we  can  work  this  ore 
cheaper  and  save  a  little  larger  percentage  of  copper." 

The  next  day  Mr.  Stalmann  reported  that  he  could  not 
make  the  trip  with  less  than  $2,000  or  $2,250. 


MARCUS  DALY.  273 

In  his  impetuous  way  Mr.  Daly  swung  around  to  his  desk, 
filled  out  a  check  for  $10,000,  and  handing  it  to  Stalmann, 
said: 

"If  you  go  to  Europe  for  the  Anaconda  company,  keep 
in  mind  that  you  are  to  go  as  a  gentleman.  When  that  money 
begins  to  run  low,  draw  for  more." 

The  change  of  front  in  the  working  of  the  mine  and  at  the 
reduction  works,  Marcus  kept  from  his  partners  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, bearing  all  the  expense  himself  until  he  made  a  success. 
"I  did  not  know  but  it  might  fail,"  he  said. 

There  have  been  some  marvelous  triumphs  in  copper  min- 
ing and  in  the  reduction  of  copper  ores  since,  but  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  Marcus  Daly  was  the  Columbus  who  found  the 
first  islands  of  the  new  copper  world. 

When  he  had  achieved  that  great  success  and  had  become 
a  copper  king,  his  nature  changed  a  little.  He  seemed  t)  be  less 
patient  under  opposition  and  more  arrogant  in  manner,  espe- 
cially to  those  he  w-as  not  fond  of,  though  he  was  as  generous 
as  ever ;  as  thoughtful  for  others  as  ever,  but  he  began  to  be 
active  in  politics  and  impatient  at  opposition.  Then  he  looked 
around  to  gratify  a  longing  that  he  had  all  his  life  been  hug- 
ging to  his  soul.  He  wanted  the  finest  farm  in  the  world  and 
wanted  to  own  the  finest  blood  horses.  He  found  the  farm  in 
Bitter  Root  valley  and  bought  it.  It  contained  more  than 
20,000  acres.  What  he  paid  for  it  I  do  not  know,  but  he  must 
have  expended  from  $2,000,000  to  $3,000,000  in  stocking  it 
and  making  it  perfect.  In  the  meantime,  if  any  blooded  horse 
performed  a  great  feat,  Marcus  purchased  him  if  the  horse 
could  be  bought.  He  sent  an  agent  to  Hungary  to  purchase 
the  great  English  blood-horse  Ormonde,  that  had  been  [>ur- 
chased  and  taken  to  Hungary. 

The  agent  bid  for  the  horse  as  long  as  he  dared,  but  a 
South  American  finally  bid  him  in  at  $140,000,  if  we  remember 
correctly,  and  the  animal  was  sent  to  Rio. 

The  agent  returned  and  reported  to  Mr.  Daly,  saying:  'T 
bid  as  long  as  I  dared  to,  as  long  as  I  thought  you  would  ap- 
prove of  my  bidding." 

"But  you  permitted  a  greaser  to  outbid  you  and  take  the 


274 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


horse  to  South  America  after  I  had  told  you  to  buy  him.  That 
is  not  the  way  a  faithful  agent  obeys  instructions,"  said  Daly, 
and  turned  away  in  disgust. 

The  last  time  I  saw  Marcus  he  told  me  that  just  then  his 
ambition  was  to  have  a  Montana  horse  win  the  English  derby. 

Many  people  thought  he  paid  most  extravagant  prices  for 
some  of  his  horses,  but  when,  after  his  death,  his  stable  was 
sold,  the  animals  brought  as  much  as  he  had  paid  for  them. 

His  clear  judgment  never  failed  him.  Most  of  the  horses 
are  gone,  but  the  farm  remains,  and  a  ^lontana  man  will  tell 
you  it  is  the  finest  farm  in  all  the  world. 

For  many  years  he  took  an  active  part  in  advertising 
Montana ;  his  only  trouble  being  that  he  would  bear  no  oppo- 
sition, and  when  fiercely  opposed,  his  motto  seemed  to  be  "^lil- 
lions  to  carry  my  point,  but  not  a  cent  for  graft." 

He  made  scores  of  friends  rich  and  rejoiced  as  much  in 
their  prosperity  as  in  his  own.  In  many  ways,  he  was  a  most 
extraordinary  man.  A  great  strike  was  once  threatened  among 
his  host  of  employees.  To  a  committee  that  called  upon  him 
he  frankly  stated  that  he  could  not  accede  to  their  demands; 
that  it  would  be  unjust  to  his  company.  To  this  the  chairman 
replied  that  in  that  case  the  men  would  strike.  "Very  well," 
was  Mr.  Daly's  answer,  "that  is  your  privilege  in  this  free 
country,  but  remember  that  if  you  do,  it  will  not  be  long  until 
there  will  be  much  suffering  among  your  men  who  have  saved 
no  money.  When  that  time  arrives,  don't  hesitate  about  calling 
on  me.  I  will  see  that  none  of  your  wives  or  children  suffer 
until  the  men  can  get  work  again.  I  have  been  a  working  man 
all  my  life  and  know  how  hard  their  lot  is  sometimes.  I  can- 
not grant  your  demands ;  because  it  would  be  an  injustice  to  my 
company,  to  the  men  who  have  invested  millions  of  dollars  here, 
and  besides  I  am  boss  here  and  do  not  propose  to  divide  my 
duties  with  you,  but  personally  T  will  do  all  I  can  for  those  de- 
pendent upon  your  work." 

^^llen  this  was  reported  to  the  union  it  was  decided  that 
it  would  be  bad  business  to  strike  on  a  man  like  Marcus  Daly. 

He  sold  the  mines  and  reduction  works  at  last  and  meant 


MARCUS  DALY.  275 

thereafter  to  live  easy,  but  in  the  work  he  had  carried  on  so 
long  his  vitality  had  been  well  nigh  exhausted. 

He  had  been  a  most  material  factor  in  the  transformation 
of  Montana.  He  had  not  been  much  disciplined  in  his  youth, 
and  he  fretted  at  any  opposition ;  then,  too,  between  his  mighty 
success  and  the  insidious  disease  that  was  even  then  creeping 
upon  him,  he  became  impatient  and  sometimes  arrogant ;  gen- 
erous to  a  fault  himself,  anything  like  ingratitude  awakened 
in  him  a  fierce  desire  for  vengeance,  and  he  did  some  things 
which  hurt  Montana,  but  they  weighed  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  good  he  had  done  the  state ;  the  unheralded  and  un- 
measured help  he  had  been  to  scores  and  hundreds  of  his  fellow 
men. 

He  carried  on  a  tremendous  work  there  for  years,  out  of 
a  multitude  of  difficulties  he  finally  wrought  a  magnificent 
success,  but  in  the  work  he  forfeited  every  chance  to  enjoy  a 
peaceful  old  age,  for  he  died  just  when  he  should  have  been  in 
his  prime. 

His  death  caused  profound  sorrow  all  over  Montana ;  to 
this  day  there  are  hundreds  of  men  who  will  tell,  as  the  tears 
run  down  their  faces,  that  there  never  was  but  one  Marcus 
Daly;  so  great  was  he,  so  clean  his  life,  so  warm  was  his  heart; 
so  high  his  soul. 

When  Montana  builds  her  hall  of  fame,  in  a  sculptured 
niche  where  sunbeams  will  play  upon  it  all  the  day  long  and 
weave  golden  halos  around  his  brow,  will  be  the  statue  of 
Marcus  Daly. 


JOHN  ATCHISON. 

THE  chief  fault  with  John  Atchison  was  that  he  had  too 
much  courage  and  energy.  These  traits  are  seldom 
charged  against  a  man  as  faults,  but  in  the  case  of  John 
Atchison  they  were ;  for  his  daring  and  his  faith  in  himself 
that  he  could  by  his  native  force  drive  anything  through  to 
success,  caused  him  to  make  many  failures.  They  swayed  his 
judgment  and  often  caused  him  to  attempt  the  impossible. 

In  1849  he  loaded  his  household  goods  and  gods  on  a 
wagon,  somew'here  in  Illinois,  if  I  remember  correctly,  and 
with  oxen  for  a  propelling  power,  started  across  the  plains. 
Several  other  families  fitted  out  the  same  way  were  in  the  com- 
pany. They  drove  through  to  Salt  Lake  valley,  and  stopped 
for  several  weeks  to  rest  their  livestock,  and,  so  far  as  possi- 
ble, to  exchange  poor  cattle  for  fresh  ones. 

Then  they  started  west  again,  taking  the  northern  route, 
and  struck  the  Sierras  in  the  vicinity  of  Honey  Lake.  It  was 
then  November  and  every  dictate  of  prudence  would  have 
counseled  them  to  camp  there  for  the  winter. 

But  when  told  that  it  was  but  a  little  more  than  one  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  Sacramento  valley,  and  as  no  winter  snows 
had  fallen.  Atchison,  who  was  the  master  spirit  of  tlie  party, 
determined  to  push  through. 

A  man  who  had  been  stationed  there  to  meet  and  direct 
emigrants  advised  them  to  take  the  Lassen  Pass,  since  called 
the  Fremont  Pass,  and  they  started.  When  over  the  summit 
and  really  not  more  than  twenty  miles  from  where  storms 
change  from  snow  to  rain,  they  encountered  a  real  Sierra  snow- 
storm. The  snow  fell  five  feet  in  a  night  and  the  temperature 
fell  to  zero. 

Nearly  all  the  cattle  perished  that  night.  There  was  noth- 
ing in  their  stomachs.  When  they  could  not  longer  stand  they 
sank  into  the  snow  and  the  cold  brought  them  speedv  deaths. 
Mrs.  Atchison  saved  her  cow  by  taking  her  into  a  corner  of  her 
own  tent. 


JOHN  ATCHISON.  277 

There  were  women  in  every  wagon  and  a  good  many 
children  in  the  company.  The  memory  of  that  night  was  a 
horror  to  them  all  the  rest  of  their  days. 

When  the  morning  dawned  they  threw  away  everything 
they  had  except  what  of  clothing  they  could  wear  and  such 
food  as  they  could  carry  and  pack  on  the  few  cattle  left,  and 
started  on  foot  for  the  west.  Fortunately  the  mountains  on 
that  side  were  precipitous  and  with  every  mile  traveled  they 
descended  two  or  three  hundred  feet  in  altitude,  and  before 
night  they  had  passed  through  the  snow  belt.  Had  they  "tried 
the  pass"  one  day  sooner  they  would  have  escaped  the  snow ; 
had  they  delayed  one  day  longer  the  chances  would  have  been 
a  hundred  to  one  that  the  snow  would  have  been  their  final 
winding  sheet. 

Arrived  at  the  Sacramento  River,  they  could  travel  no 
further,  yet  it  was  imperative  that  they  should  move  on. 

Packed  on  one  of  the  oxen  was  a  bale  of  small  rope  and 
some  axes,  augurs  and  other  carpenter's  tools.  Under  Atchi- 
son's direction  the  men  felled  some  small  trees  on  the  river 
bank,  cut  and  trimmed  them,  hewed  off  the  rounded  sides,  put 
them  together,  lashed  them  with  this  coil  of  rope  and  pegged 
them  with  slats.  They  caulked  them  with  rags  of  their  cloth- 
ing and  pitch  from  the  trees  and  on  this  frail  scow  loaded 
the  women  and  children,  and  "cast  off."  Frail  as  it  was,  it 
floated  the  company  down  to  where  they  got  help. 

I  have  stated  the  above  to  give  an  idea  of  the  invincible 
soul  of  John  Atchison. 

He  lived  nearly  thirty  years  after  that,  but  there  was 
never  a  new  mining  camp  found  that  he  did  not  go  with  the 
first  crowd  to  it ;  never  an  enterprise  suggested  that  seemed 
too  hazardous  for  him ;  never  a  chance  proposed  that  he  would 
not  take. 

He  followed  the  trail  in  the  early  fifties  to  Garden  Valley 
l)elow  Camptonville,  located  the  valley,  built  a  house  there;  and 
that  was  his  home,  while  he  followed  placer  mining  for  several 
years. 

He  went  with  almost  the  first  company  to  the  Comstock; 
"made  a  stake"  there,  and  then  explored  Nevada,  Idaho,  and 


278  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

Utah,  locating  or  bonding  and  selling  mines  until  seized  with 
an  illness  brought  on  by  exposure,  he  died  in  Salt  Lake  City 
in  the  late  seventies. 

It  may  be  said  that  he  never  rested  from  the  time  he  helped 
construct  that  unique  raft  on  the  bank  of  the  Sacramento  river 
until  he  died.  His  name  was  a  household  word  over  all  north- 
ern California,  and  everywhere  he  was  held  as  a  man  at  once 
indomitable  and  irrepressible. 

\Mien  appealed  to  for  advice  on  matters  in  which  he  had 
no  personal  interest,  his  mind  was  always  strong  and  clear,  and 
the  counsel  he  gave  was  always  shrewd  and  wise. 

But  when  intent  upon  some  scheme  of  his  own.  he  often 
failed  in  judgment;  that  is.  he  permitted  his  sanguine  belief  in 
himself  to  override  it. 

Had  he  been  born  a  thousand  miles  further  west,  he  prob- 
ably would  have  been  a  trapper  and  hunter ;  had  he  been  born 
a  thousand  miles  further  east,  he  might  have  been  one  of  those 
mighty  men  of  affairs— a  Vanderbilt  or  a  Tom  Scott,  for  he 
had  the  ability  and  his  resourcefulness  was  inexhaustible. 

He  was  one  of  that  class  of  men  that  no  matter  what  his 
surroundings  may  be.  he  always  gravitates  to  the  top  and  is 
hailed  as  a  leader. 

He  might  have  been  a  John  the  Baptist  except  that  he 
never  would  have  acknowledged  that  a  greater  than  he  was 
coming  behind. 

He  was  most  sincere,  and  his  highest  dream  was  to  make 
an  independence  for  those  he  loved. 

The  trouble  was  that  he  was  not  only  ready  to  attempt 
anything  that  looked  good  to  him.  but  he  would  pledge  all  he 
had  that  it  would  make  good.  And  all  the  time  he  was  carry- 
ing a  host  of  decrepit  friends  and  relatives. 

Thus  he  wore  himself  out  and  died  before  his  time,  with- 
out achieving  anything  that  will  last  in  the  memories  of  men, 
when  in  truth  thousands  of  men  with  not  half  his  equipmen:, 
not  half  his  courage,  and  not  a  tithe  of  his  energy,  have  gone 
into  the  records  as  great  men. 

On  his  monument  should  be  embossed :  "He  died  of  too 
much  energy  and  courage." 


JUDGE  J.  B.  ROSEBOROUGH. 

IT  IS  with  a  solemn  joy  that  I  recall  Judge  Roseboroiigh, 
his  stately  bearing,  without  the  slightest  pride,  but  with 
a  self-respect  so  austere  and  yet  so  gentle  that  all  men 
understood  by  a  glance  that  he  was  trained  in  a  school  where 
only  gentlemen  were  admitted,  and  where  no  gentleman  could 
lower  himself  to  ever  do  an  unworthy  act  or  submit  to  an  un- 
worthy imputation. 

He  was  southern  born,  in  South  Carolina,  I  think,  but  he 
was  an  Argonaut  in  California.  He  did  not  reach  there  until 
he  was  a  finished  scholar,  and  thorough  lawyer. 

No  one  suspected  the  compass  of  his  learning  who  was 
not  close  to  him.  It  ranged  over  every  field.  Not  a  smattering 
of  knowledge  in  a  hundred  directions,  but  a  profound  scholar 
and  careful  student  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

He  was  a  walking  encyclopedia  of  his  own  country  in 
every  way.  All  the  stately  figures  in  the  political  history  of  the 
country,  or  in  the  literature  of  the  country  were  familiar  to  him, 
not  only  their  acts  and  their  triumphs,  but  their  characters  as 
men ;  every  c[uestion  of  importance  that  has  agitated  the  coun- 
try he  could  tersly  state  both  sides  of;  all  the  different  forms 
of  government  that  the  nations  have  tried,  he  could  explain, 
all  the  classics  were  at  his  call  when  he  wanted  a  simile  or  an 
illustration;  his  word  pictures  of  men,  either  as  finished  as  the 
old  masters  or  as  cartoons,  were  delicious  to  listen  to ;  he  was 
equally  as  thorough  in  the  sciences,  from  the  stars  above  to 
the  chemistry  of  earth  and  air — every  thought  was  an  illumina- 
tion. The  old  story  of  the  man  in  London  who  took  refuge 
under  a  bridge  for  half  an  hour  in  a  great  storm  and  engaged 
in  conversation  with  a  stranger  and  who  went  away  declaring 
that  the  man  he  had  met  had  told  him  everything  in  the  world, 
might  have  applied  to  Judge  Roseborough  as  well  as  to  Ed- 
mund Burke. 

No  man  ever  took  a  morning  walk  with  Judge  Rose- 
borough  who  did  not  come  back  the  wiser.     Everything  inter- 


280 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


ested  him;  he  made  everything  interesting.  To  some  boys  who 
were  preparing  to  chmb  a  certain  tree,  he  said :  "Why  are  you 
going  to  cHmb  that  tree?" 

One  of  the  boys  rephed  :    "For  birds'-nests." 

Then  the  judge  stopped  and  said :  "You  will  find  no  nests 
in  that  tree.  Look  at  the  branches  and  the  leaves !  Do  you 
not  see  that  they  all  grow  straight  up  ;  that  none  of  them  droop ; 
hence  they  cannot  shed  water  when  it  rains. 

"The  birds  know  that,  know  that  were  they  to  build  nests 
in  the  branches,  they  would  be  flooded  out  with  the  first  rain 
and  perhaps  their  babies  would  be  drowned :  hence  they  never 
build  nests  in  a  tree  the  foliage  of  which  furnishes  no  protec- 
tion for  their  houses." 

He  was  greatly  interested  in  small  boys,  and  would  often 
stop  them  and  ask  them  to  show  him  the  contents  of  their 
pockets,  and  was  always  ready  to  wager  that  if  the  boy  was 
able  to  buy  a  knife  he  would  have  a  knife,  and  would  never 
fail  to  have  a  stick  and  a  string,  because  a  boy  could  mend 
almost  any  toy  with  a  knife,  a  stick  and  a  string. 

He  said  to  a  friend  one  day :  "^^^^y  can  I  not  raise  alfalfa 
in  Texas?"  The  friend  asked  him  what  his  sub-soil  was.  He 
answered,  "Clay."  "And  how  deep  beneath  the  surface  does 
it  lie?"  the  friend  asked.  "About  two  feet."  said  the  judge.  "I 
suppose,"  said  the  friend,  "the  winter  rains  sink  to  the  clay, 
can  get  no  farther,  and  the  sour  stagnant  water  poisons  the 
roots  of  the  alfalfa." 

The  judge  was  still  for  a  moment  and  then  said:  "Don't 
tell  anyone  that  I  asked  that  fool  question,  for  I  knew  better 
had  I  stopped  to  reason  for  a  moment.  Of  course,  that  is  the 
reason.  Alfalfa  is  two-thirds  water;  where  it  has  a  chance  it 
will  go  down  twenty  feet  on  a  still  hunt  for  water,  but  wants 
pure  water,  and  wdien  stopped  on  its  downward  way  and 
choked  by  stagnant  water,  of  course  it  is  killed." 

He  w^as  a  district  judge  in  California  for  a  good  while. 

Late  in  the  fifties  he  settled  in  Siskiyou  county  with  his 
l^rother,  who  was  likewise  a  lawyer. 

Then  the  people  elected  his  brother  judge,  and  the  ok 
judge  began  to  settle  his  business  prior  to  moving  away. 


JUDGE  J.  B.  ROSEBOROUGH.  281 

A  friend  hearing-  of  it  went  to  him  and  asked  him  why  he 
was  going  to  give  up  his  splendid  business  and  seek  a  new  field. 
His  answer  was :  "After  a  few  weeks  my  brother  will  be  pre- 
siding judge  of  this  district.  Naturally,  if  here  I  would  have 
to  try  cases  before  him.  He  might  sometime  decide  a  case  in 
mv  favor ;  then  some  one  might  say  I  won  the  case  because  my 
brother  happened  to  be  the  judge.  Then  I  should  have  to  kill 
the  dirty  dog,  and  it  is  not  worth  the  trouble."  But  he  deplored 
the  necessity  which  made  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  remove 
from  old  Siskiyou. 

There  were  old  Shasta  and  the  sister  peaks ;  the  roar  of 
the  great  ocean  was  but  a  little  w^ay  west,  and  his  soul  was  in 
perfect  accord  with  every  majestic  display  of  nature. 

When  a  great  electric  storm  was  raging,  his  way  was  to 
go  out  into  the  storm  and  exultantly  salute  every  lightning- 
flash  and  every  thunder  peal. 

He  removed  first  to  Idaho  and  a  little  later  with  Colonel 
Merritt  for  a  partner,  settled  in  Salt  Lake  City,  opened  a  law 
office  and  practiced  his  profession  with  great  honor  for  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century.  He  was  intensely  southern  and  justified  every 
effort  that  the  south  made  to  establish  an  independent  govern- 
ment ;  his  thought  being  that  if  the  cause  was  a  righteous  one 
in  1776,  it  was  quite  as  much  so  in  1861. 

But  he  had  a  profound  reverence  for  law,  and  the  rule  that 
prevailed  in  Utah  up  to  the  issuing  by  President  Woodruff  of 
the  Manifesto,  kept  his  hot  pulses  throbbing  with  fever  speed 
all  the  time. 

Still,  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the  people  of  the  Church  of 
Latter-day  Saints  his  heart  went  out  in  profound  sympathy. 

When  Colonel  Merritt  became  judge.  Judge  Roseborough 
did  what  he  had  done  in  Siskiyou.  He  prepared  to  move.  He 
found  a  great  tract  of  fine  land  down  near  Aransas  Pass,  Texas, 
and  joined  by  Judge  Harkness  and  the  late  John  Q.  Packard 
of  Salt  Lake  City,  they  purchased  it  and  stocked  it. 

It  was  a  cape  that  jutted  far  out  into  the  Gulf,  so  that  a 
short  fence  at  the  upper  end  made  of  it.  for  stock-raising  pur- 
poses, an  island. 

He   removed    there   and    remained    several   years,   finally 


282  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

selling  out  and  realizing  a  large  fortune  for  all  the  investors. 

While  he  was  there  a  gentleman  of  Salt  Lake  City  visited 
Texas  and  reported  that  the  Texans  held  the  judge  as  a  mod- 
ern Socrates.  He  said  also  that  a  Texan,  getting  lost  one  night, 
rode  until  4  a.  m.,  when,  seeing  a  light  he  went  to  the  house 
and  found  it  was  Judge  Roseborough's.  The  light  was  in  the 
judge's  librar}^ 

He  knocked  at  the  door,  and  being  answered  by  a  "Come 
in,"  entered  to  find  the  judge  by  his  table  with  Dante's  Inferno 
in  his  hand.  He  had  been  all  night  absorbed  in  reading,  never 
realizing  that  bedtime  had  passed  hours  before. 

The  last  I  heard  of  him  he  had  gone  back  to  South  Caro- 
lina.   He  must,  a  good  while  ago,  have  passed  on. 

If  he  has.  South  CaroHna  has  not  one  nobler  grave  than 
his ;  so  splendid  was  he  in  character  and  mind,  so  sensitive  was 
he  of  his  honor;  so  just  was  he  as  a  man  and  citizen;  so  high 
were  all  his  ideals ;  so  lofty  was  his  integrity ;  so  brave  and  true 
of  soul  was  he. 

Not  many  men  in  Utah  understood  or  appreciated  him.  A 
state  filled  with  such  men  would  seem  to  every  visitor  what  the 
Roman  senate  seemed  to  the  visiting  Greek — "an  assemblage 
of  kings." 

He  was  a  great  lawyer  and  jurist,  he  was  a  schoolmaster 
to  all  men  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  get  into  the  inner 
circle  of  his  confidence  and  friendship  and  while  he  was  a  resi- 
dent of  Salt  Lake,  the  average  man  of  Utah  no  more  realized 
what  he  was  than  did  the  man  we  read  of  realize  who  his 
guests  were  when  lie,  unawares,  entertained  angels. 


JOHN  PERCIVAL  JONES. 

BORN  in  England  or  Wales,  brought  to  the  United  States 
when  five  years  of  age,  or,  as  he  in  jest  was  wont  to 
say :  "Not  liking  the  customs  of  the  old  country,  I  left 
Wales  at  five  years  of  age  for  the  United  States,  and  brought 
my  whole  family  with  me." 

He  passed  fifteen  years  in  and  about  Cleveland,  Ohio,  at- 
tending the  schools  there ;  then  at  twenty  turned  his  face  west- 
ward, graduated  among  the  California  mountains,  and  took 
his  post-graduate  course  on  the  Comstock. 

Who  can  give  to  those  who  never  met  him  an  idea  of 
John  P.  Jones? 

He  was  perhaps  five  feet  nine  and  a  half  inches  in  height, 
massive,  weighing  say  one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds,  ruddy 
complexion,  with  dark  gray  or  black  eyes,  a  face  at  once  strik- 
ing, joyous,  genial  and  commanding. 

He  was  a  profound  thinker,  but  this  he  was  wont  to  keep 
masked  except  in  the  seclusion  of  his  own  library,  among 
trusted  friends,  or  when  a  few  times  in  the  senate  of  the  United 
States  he  made  clear  to  the  great  scholars  there  that  they  had 
never  learned  the  alphabet  of  the  language  which  was  needed 
to  make  clear  some  of  the  deeper  sciences  of  government  or  of 
the  philosophy  of  money.  He  was  generous  as  the  sunbeams 
that  come  in  the  spring  to  drive  the  chill  from  the  earth  and 
clothe  it  with  verdure  and  flowers ;  his  affections  were  of  the 
very  deepest ;  his  courage  was  equal  to  any  test ;  and  all  the 
time  his  sense  of  humor  was  so  exquisite,  his  conversational 
powers  so  wonderful  that  an  hour  with  him  when  he  was  care- 
free.was  better  than  food  to  the  hungry  or  medicine  to  the  sick. 
His  judgment  of  men  was  infallible.  He  once  said  to  Senator 
Lodge  of  Massachusetts : 

"Senator.  I  have  heard  many  of  your  speeches,  have  read 
all  your  published  thoughts.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  tell  you 
that  you  are  an  elociuent  speaker ;  that  with  your  epigrams  and 
metaphors,  your  logic  and  figures  of  speech  and  speaking  the 


284  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

exact  words  needed  to  make  clear  your  thoughts,  it  is  a  delight 
to  read  your  books.  Only,  Senator,  you  have  never  come  down 
to  earth.  You  don't  know  a  blessed  thing  in  the  world  of  how 
a  poor  man  goes  to  work  to  make  a  living  and  to  feed  his 
babies." 

Still,  when  in  joyous  conversation,  he  w^ould  frequently 
pronounce  a  dozen  words  that  would  make  clear  that  a  pro- 
found problem  had  been  mastered  by  him  in  a  way  that  settled 
it  forever.  He  read  much,  and  his  range  of  reading  covered 
everything  that  was  beautiful  or  deep  or  grotesque.  He  would 
have  been  at  home  w' ith  Aristotle  or  Socrates.  He  would  have 
looked  Julius  Caesar  squarely  in  the  eyes  and  told  him  if  some 
proposition  of  his  was  faulty ;  he  would  have  been  perfectly 
at  home  wnth  Curran  or  Sheridan  or  Bobbie  Burns.  Still  the 
stalwarts,  Conkling,  Chandler,  Morton  and  the  others,  leaned 
upon  him  as  upon  an  immovable  pillar  of  strength. 

His  early  life  in  the  solemn  mountains  had  its  effect  upon 
him  as  it  does  on  all  thinking  people,  for  in  the  hills  man  grows 
close  to  nature.  This  supplemented  with  the  depths  of  a  great 
mine  where  in  the  darkness  men  search  for  ore  bodies,  is  never 
outgrown.  Such  a  man  is  not  easily  surprised  and  when  the 
strain  is  over,  disappointment  after  that  is  met  with  no  emo- 
tion which  is  apparent  to  others. 

It  w^as  from  that  school  that  J.  P.  Jones  emerged  with 
honors  and  soon  after  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate, and  held  the  place  for  thirty  years.  He  made  but  few 
speeches,  one  or  two  on  the  tariff,  two  or  three  on  the  silver 
question,  as  it  w^as  carried  on  from  1873  to  1893.  Of  those 
speeches  it  may  be  said  they  w^ere  never  replied  to.  Other 
senators  discussed  the  question,  but  never  essayed  to  answer 
what  he  said.     There  was  a  reason  for  this — they  could  not. 

When  we  consider  the  state  of  the  exchanges  between  the 
United  States  and  the  Orient,  to  turn  back  and  read  what  Sen- . 
ator  Jones  said  on  that  question  reads  like  a  solemn  prophecy. 

In  his  first  speech  in  the  senate  the  experiment  was  made! 
to  bombard  him  with  questions.  It  was  not  long  persisted  in,  for] 
the  more  questions  that  were  asked,  the  more  it  was  apparent 


JOHN   PERCIVAL  JONES.  285 

that  his  knowledge  of  his  theme  was  the  master's,  that  of  his 
inquisitors  was  but  as  a  schoolboy's. 

From  the  first  he  drew  to  him  in  friendship  and  respect 
those  whose  friendship  and  respect  were  most  to  be  coveted. 

It  could  not  have  been  otherwise.  He  had  read  all  the 
literature  that  any  of  them  had ;  his  views  were  quite  as  high 
and  pronounced  as  those  of  the  most  exclusive  of  them  all,  and 
still  he  was  geniality  itself  and  was  at  home  everywhere;  and 
everywhere  when  he  asserted  himself,  he  held  the  center  of 
the  stage. 

General  Grant  believed  in  him  implicitly.  He  was  never 
verv  friendly  with  President  Harrison,  and  we  believe  this  was 
through  a  misunderstanding.  President  Harrison  was  thought 
to  be  cold  and  reserved.  The  truth  is  he  was  merely  shy.  Could 
the  right  man  have  introduced  them  and  shook  them  both  out 
into  free  converse,  they  would  have  been  friends  always. 

President  Arthur  leaned  upon  Senator  Jones,  I  believe, 
more  than  upon  any  other  senator.  Senator  Jones  and  Presi- 
dent Cleveland  never  affiliated.  Senator  Jones  exactly 
appreciated  President  Cleveland ;  in  return  Mr.  Cleveland 
never  had  the  slightest  idea  of  the  nature  of  Senator  Jones. 
Senators  Conkling  and  Cameron  were  in  love  with  the  Nevada 
senator,  and  so  was  President  McKinley. 

Senators  are  easily  made,  at  least  sometimes,  but  the 
rare  thing  is  to  find  an  all-around  great  man.  one  who  would 
have  been  great  had  no  books  ever  been  written.  One  who.  after 
books  were  written  could  read  them,  storing  in  memory  all  the 
gems  of  thought  and  discarding  the  rest ;  one  who  was  as  great 
as  the  best,  but  who.  while  holding  himself  the  peer  of  the  high- 
est, had  his  ears  open  always  to  the  right,  and  who  could  detect 
real  manhood  under  the  gray  shirt  of  a  miner  as  quickly  as 
under  a  senatorial  robe. 

He  spent  a  good  deal  of  money  in  his  first  campaign, 
though  he  knew  that  his  election  was  sure  from  the  first.  But 
it  seemed  natural  to  him  to  be  generous  to  the  men  who  were 
joyouslv  working  for  him. 

1^vo  anecdotes  of  that  campaign  may  not  be  out  of  place. 

Tn  the  frce-and-easv  wavs  of  the  Comstock.  a  middle-a'^-ed. 


286  AS  I  RE.ME.MBER  THEM. 

grave  and  soft-voiced  gambler  called  upon  him,  and  proceeded 
at  once  to  business.  Said  he:  "J-  P-?  I  can  control  about  a 
thousand  votes  in  this  coming  election,  but  it  will  take  some 
money." 

"About  how  much  money?"  asked  the  would-be  senator. 

"As  nigh  as  I  can  calculate,  about  ten  dollars  a  head,"  was 
the  reply. 

"But  who  are  these  gentlemen  who  desire  to  sell  their 
votes?"  was  the  next  question. 

The  sport  replied :  "They  are  quiet,  low-down  chaps  that 
will  never  peach.  An  investigating  court  could  not  by  torture 
get  a  word  from  one  of  them." 

"You  interest  me,"  said  Jones.  "But  who  and  where  are 
these  voters?" 

"It  has  taken  a  great  deal  of  work  on  mv  part  to  get 
them  marshaled  and  all  their  names  put  down  correctlv."  was 
the  reply. 

"But  who  are  they,  and  where  are  you  keeping  them?" 
asked  Jones. 

Then  the  sport's  voice  grew  more  soft  and  insinuating 
as  he  said :  "They  are  up  in  the  burying-ground,  J.  P.  I 
have  been  a  month  chipping  the  moss  and  syenite  dust  off  their 
names  and  copying  them." 

Jones  told  his  visitor  that  he  did  not  believe  he  wanted 
that  kind  of  support,  and  the  man,  warning  Jones  that  he  wa'^ 
likely  to  be  sorry  at  not  acepting  the  offer,  retired. 

A  month  after  election,  the  candidate  met  the  sport  again, 
who  said :  "J.  P.,  you  had  better  reconsider  the  reward  that  is 
due  me.  You  see  I  still  have  the  chisel,  and  if  I  should  ge^ 
angry  sometime  after  you  are  gone  I  could  disfranchise  you  for 
all  eternity." 

Colonel  O.,  who  was  a  native-born  Englishman,  but  like 
Jones,  a  stalwart  American,  told  Jones  that  in  the  mines  there 
were  a  thousand  English  miners,  and  they  wanted  to  organize  a 
"Jones  British  Club,"  biit  they  had  no  hall  to  meet  in. 

Jones  said:  "All  right.  Find  the  hall,  pay  the  rent  in 
advance  for  six  months,  hire  a  band  for  every  night  up  to 


JOHN  PERCIVAL  JONES.  287 

election  day,  have  some  refreshments  on  hand,  and  let  the  boys 
have  a  good  time.     Come  to  me  for  what  may  be  needed." 

The  programme  was  carried  out  and  things  went  on 
swimmingly  up  to  election  day. 

About  noon  on  election  day  O.  came  to  Jones  and  told 
him  that  the  dirty  dogs  would  not  vote  until  a  large  assess- 
ment which  they  had  levied  was  paid. 

^^"ith  a  laugh  Jones  said :  "Send  word  to  them  that  T  am 
awfully  busy  just  now,  but  I  will  come  down  after  a  while." 
At  about  3  p.  m.  they  sent  a  messenger  that  they  were  waiting. 
Jones  bade  the  messenger  tell  them  he  would  be  over  in  a  few 
minutes.  A  fresh  shift  of  men  were  at  the  time  coming  out  of 
the  Belcher  and  Crown  Point  mines  and  hurrying  to  take  their 
places  in  line  to  vote. 

When  that  line  was  extended  until  it  was  clear  it  would 
take  until  the  polls  closed  for  them  all  to  vote,  Jones  repaired 
to  the  hall. 

Mounting  the  little  rostrum  he  said : 

"My  fellow  miners,  I  have  taken  great  interest  in  your 
club  from  the  first.  When  I  see  English-born  men  come  to 
America,  and  see  them  after  they  have  become  familiar  with 
the  principles  of  our  free  government  and  understand  the 
opportunities  supplied  here  for  true  men,  take  on  the  solemn 
obligations  of  citizenship,  I  rejoice  and  say  to  myself,  'These 
are  worthy  descendants  of  those  Englishmen  who  made  Eng- 
land free  and  held  her  free  when  almost  all  the  earth  outside 
was  lost  in  apparent  anarchy.'  And  my  comforting  thought 
is  that  they  will  be  as  true  to  the  land  of  their  adoption  as  they 
were  to  the  land  of  their  birth. 

"These  thoughts  are  what  prompted  me  to  help  you  in 
the  formation  of  your  club.  It  was  not  half  so  much  to  get 
your  votes,  as  because  we  all  came  from  the  same  land,  and 
while  our  allegiance  here  is  ecpal  to  any  native  born  Ameri- 
cans, we  have  beside  the  memory  that  it  was  our  forefathers 
who,  while  conquering  a  peace  for  themselves,  at  the  same  time 
conquered  what  was  crude  and  wrong  and  sav^age  in  their  own 
natures  and  dedicated  our  England  to  order,  to  law,  to  liberty 
to  progress  and  enlightenment.     In  the  meantime,  too,  they 


288 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


established  a  literature  of  their  own  higher  than  was  ever 
before  founded.  On  land  and  sea  for  a  thousand  years  they 
have  held  their  place,  until  the  names  of  her  heroes  and  sages 
and  scholars  make  the  brightest  list  that  ever  the  sun  shone  on. 

"An  hundred  years  ago,  when  England  had  unworthy 
citizens  she  transported  those  whom  she  did  not  hang.  I  am 
satisfied  that  had  that  still  been  the  custom,  not  one  of  you 
would  have  ever  paid  your  own  passage  money  to  get  awaj. 
And  now,  asking  your  pardon  for  detaining  you  so  long,  I 
want  to  explain  that  the  only  reason  that  prompted  me  to 
come  here  today  was  to  have  the  pleasure  of  telling  the  last 
mother's  son  of  you  that  you  have  my  full  permission  to  gc  to 
h — 1,  and  to  hope  that  none  of  you  will  be  delayed  in  reaching 
your  rightful  destination." 

There  was  a  rush  to  reach  the  polls  to  vote  against  the 
Jones  legislative  ticket,  but  it  was  too  late.  The  whole  bunch 
were  shut  out. 

He  went  twice,  if  I  remember  correctly,  on  international 
monetary  commissions  abroad,  and  held  his  place  with  honor 
among  the  world's  foremost  authorities  on  finance.  Not  until 
past  four  score  did  he  retire  to  his  estate  at  Santa  Monica, 
California,  to  pass  the  twilight  of  his  life  there. 

It  was  a  most  appropriate  place.  The  world  with  its 
storms  and  heat  and  cold,  its  fierce  winds  and  tempests,  was 
all  behind  him.  Before  him  was  the  great  ocean ;  its  surges, 
freed  from  all  their  deep-sea  fierceness  and  wrath,  came  rolling 
in,  bringing  in  low  murmurs  refrains  from  far  off  shores; 
bringing  to  the  weary  man  whispers  of  peace,  which  to  the  aged 
who  are  losing  their  hold  on  life  are  what  a  mother's  lulla- 
by is  to  the  child  just  entering  upon  life,  and  so  under  those 
murmurs,  in  the  soft  air,  from  his  peaceful  surroundings  there 
he  passed  to  the  deeper  peace. 

He  lived  and  died  an  honor  to  this  western  coast. 

Because  of  him  the  manhood  of  the  coast  was  exalted  in 
the  world's  estimation. 

In  his  own  home,  when  he  died,  the  light  of  the  world 
well  nisfh  went  out. 


ALLEN  GREEN  CAMPBELL. 

AVERY  sterling  man  was  Allen  Green  Campbell;  there 
are  thousands  of  people  in  Utah  who  knew  him,  who 
were  familiar  with  him  every  day  for  years ;  but  we 
venture  the  belief  that  not  one  in  two  hundred  of  them  all 
realized  how  true  was  his  manhood,  how  high  his  soul. 

Could  he,  when  he  was  poor,  have  been  offered  a  fortune 
at  the  expense  of  doing  an  unmanly  act,  such  as  thousands 
would  cheerfully  do  and  esteem  it  as  a  shrewd  busines,  trans- 
action, he  woukl  have  spurned  it. 

An  instance  of  this  was  shown  when  the  Horn  Silver 
mine  was  sold.  The  company  had  given  a  certain  man  a  bond 
on  the  mine.  He  went  to  New  York  and  after  awhile  wired 
or  wrote  Campbell  to  come  with  authority  to  give  a  title  to  the 
mine,  as  it  was  sold.  Mr.  Campbell  prepared  the  necessary 
papers  and  went  to  New  York.  The  day  after  his  arrival  he 
was  ushered  into  a  room  where  he  found  the  principal  sub- 
scribers to  the  purchase  waiting  for  him. 

Then  one  of  those  present  said:  "Mr.  Campbell,  we  have 
agreed  to  purchase  the  Horn  Silver  mine  on  the  report  that  has 
been  presented  to  us,  provided  you  endorse  the  report." 

The  report  was  read  to  him.  then  pushed  over  the  table  for 
his  endorsement. 

He  pushed  it  aside  and  said :  "I  cannot  endorse  that 
report." 

'And  why  not?"  was  asked  him. 

"Because,"  he  replied,  "it  is  not  true." 

All  looked  disappointed,  and  the  man  who  had  obtained 
the  option  was  paralyzed.  There  was  an  oppressive  silence  for 
a  moment,  when  one  of  those  present  said : 

"What  kind  of  a  report  would  you  endorse,  Mr.  Camp 
bell?" 

Campbell  replied :  "Yours,  if  you  would  but  stick  to  the 
truth." 


290 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


"But  I  know  nothing  about  mines  or  miners,"  said 
the  man. 

"Well,"  said  Campbell,  "push  your  chair  up  to  the  table 
and  let  me  make  an  expert  out  of  you !" 

The  gentleman  laughingly  assented,  drew  some  papers 
and  pens  before  him,  and  said,  "I  am  ready." 

Then  Mr.  Campbell  told  him  to  write  what  the  surface 
formation  showed,  giving  him  the  data  sentence  by  sentence. 
Then  he  took  him  to  the  first  level  in  the  mine,  had  him  write 
the  length,  breadth,  and  the  assay  value  of  the  ore  shoot  devel- 
oped there.  In  the  same  way  he  went  through  all  the  levels  of 
the  mine,  then  he  bade  him  put  down  the  cost  of  mining,  haul- 
ing and  smelting,  to  make  clear  what  the  net  value  of  the  mine 
so  far  as  developed  was. 

Then  he  told  him  to  reckon  thirteen  cubic  feet  of  ore  to 
the  ton,  to  calculate  the  tonnage,  then  deduct  the  cost  of  min- 
ing and  reduction  and  give  the  gentlemen  present  the  result. 

The  man  was  an  expert  accountant,  and  in  five  minutes 
gave  the  amount,  which  was  some  $300,000  more  than  the 
man  with  the  option  had  figured  out  from  his  imagination. 
Then  Mr.  Campbell  said :  "I  will  sign  that  report.  You  are 
about  the  only  honest  expert  that  I  have  met  for  six  months. 
I  will  sign  the  report  and  guarantee  that  you  will  find  the 
mine  as  stated,  except  that  on  the  lowest  level  the  boys  were 
uncovering  the  ore  chute  several  feet  every  day.  and  there  wiM 
probablv  be  100  feet  more  ore  there  for  you  than  this  report 
includes." 

Then  all  present  took  on  a  new  idea  of  a  western  miner. 

Mr.  Campbell  was  a  great  miner  and  an  intense  American. 
He  was  not  a  scholar  in  the  usual  sense;  but  he  would  have 
been  a  close  friend  of  Plato  or  Socrates  had  he  lived  in  the 
Sfeneration  of  either  of  them,  for  he  had  reasoned  out  how 
things  should  be  from  an  intuition  all  his  own. 

One  day  when  a  group  of  men  were  discussing  the  Chi- 
nese question,  one  of  them  turned  to  him  and  said:  "Mr. 
Campbell,  do  you  not  think  the  Chinese  should  be  kept  out  of 
our  country,  such  a  menace  are  the}-  to  poor  white  laborers?" 

Campbell  waited  a  moment  and  then  said :     "The  Chinese 


ALLEN  GREEN  CAMPBELL.  291 

that  come  to  our  country  are  poor  wretches,  but  they  are  men. 
They  represent  the  results  of  thousands  of  years  of  want  and 
suffering.  They  are  grateful  to  work  for  a  pittance  and  to 
do  menial  work.  Could  I  have  my  way  I  would  let  them  come 
and  do  that  work  and  at  the  same  time  exalt  American  work- 
ingmen  to  places  where  the  Chinese  could  not  compete  with 
them." 

He  always  meant  to  be  absolutely  fair,  and  justice  was 
his  insistance  from  childhood  to  the  last  day  of  his  life. 

At  the  same  time  he  had  some  weights  upon  him.  He 
never  could  outgrow  some  provincialisms  and  prejudices  that 
were  due  to  the  environments  of  his  youth,  and  could  not 
always  distinguish  an  honest  man  from  a  would-be  grafter. 

He  became  accustomed  to  the  control  of  a  great  fortune, 
but  when  he  traded  his  Nevada  farm  for  a  small  orange  grove 
at  Riverside,  Cal.,  he  fixed  his  home  there  and  told  with  more 
pride  that  he  cleared  $2,000  from  it  the  previous  year,  than 
he  ever  exhibited  when  a  mining  transaction  had  brought  him 
three  hundred  times  that  amount. 

He  was  one  of  the  truest  of  friends.  He  and  Mr.  Matt 
Cullen  of  Salt  Lake  City  were  partners  in  the  Horn  Silver 
mine.  To  his  dying  day  he  always  looked  upon  Mr.  Cullen 
as  a  brother. 

When  he  accepted  the  nomination  as  a  delegate  to  Con- 
gress from  Utah,  he  did  not  expect  or  desire  to  hold  the  office. 
He  ran  merely  to  vindicate  a  principle  and  as  a  protest  against 
what  he  looked  upon  as  a  defiance  of  law  on  the  part  of  the 
majority  here. 

There  was  much  of  the  martyr  in  him.  He  feared  noth- 
ing on  earth  except  to  do  wrong,  and  he  would  have  cheerfully 
faced  death  for  what  he  believed  to  be  right. 

He  left  his  early  home  with  nothing  except  his  faith  in 
the  invincibility  of  labor,  backed  by  honest  intentions.  He' 
became  an  accomplished  miner  and  made  a  fortune,  but  there 
was  not  one  stain  upon  one  of  the  dollars  he  accumulated,  or 
upon  his  life  while  he  was  accumulating  it. 

He  was  a  great-hearted  man  and  a  patriot  as  true  as  wa-^ 
Regulus.     He  was  alwavs  a  reminder  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in 


292  AS  I  REAIEMBER  THEM. 

the  unfeigned  integrity  of  purpose  which  controlled  his  life. 
But  his  hands  and  feet  showed  that  he  was  of  gentler  stock 
than  was  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Utah  never  realized  how  great  and  true  a  man  he  was, 
for  he  was  utterly  unpretentious  and  was  never  in  a  position 
where  his  real  character  shone  out  before  the  eyes  of  the  peo- 
I)le.  He  had  within  him  all  the  elements  of  a  great  soul;  we 
do  not  believe  that  he  ever  himself  knew  how  much  of  a  factor 
for  good  he  might  have  been. 

I  one  day  heard  a  man  ask  him  what  his  idea  of  serving 
God  was.  He  replied :  "To  do  wdiat  little  good  we  can  here 
for  God's  poor."    That  was  one  key  to  his  real  nature. 

He  died  too  soon,  but  he  met  death  as  he  had  all  the 
storms  of  life,  with  calmness  and  without  fear. 


A.  C.  CLEVELAND. 

THE  Honorable  A.  C.  Cleveland,  while  yet  a  boy,  went  to 
California  from  the  state  of  Maine.  California  had  a 
great  many  fighters  at  that  time.  Cleveland  went  to  one 
of  the  southern  counties  where  fighters  abounded.  Coming 
from  Maine,  they  thought  at  first  he  was  an  easy  victim.  After 
six  months  he  could  not  get  a  quarrel  unless  he  forced  it. 

His  career  in  that  respect  always  reminded  me  of  S.  S. 
Prentiss,  who  went  from  Maine  to  Mississippi.  At  that  time 
everyone  fought  in  Mississippi.  It  was  not  long  until  Pren- 
tiss had  occasion  to  fight  a  duel  with  he  who  afterwards  became 
Senator  Foote.  He  was  lame  and  walked  with  a  cane.  The 
second  of  Foote  objected  to  his  leaning  on  the  cane  while  the 
duel  was  on,  at  which  he  threw  it  away,  saying,  "I  can  lick 
Foote  on  one  leg." 

Some  boys  had  climbed  trees  nearby,  and  during  the  pre- 
liminaries for  the  duel  Prentiss  looked  ivi  to  them  and  said : 
"Boys,  look  out!     Foote  shoots  mighty  wild." 

But  later  Mississippi  took  Prentiss  to  its  arms,  and  most 
Mississippi  boys  at  this  date  believe  that  he  was  to  the  manor 
born  in  that  state. 

]\Ir.  Cleveland  early  went  to  Nevada,  when  Nevada  was 
not  altogether  a  Sunday  School.  In  his  early  days  he  had 
some  few  little  difficulties,  but  he  learned  later  to  restrain 
himself. 

His  first  business  in  Nevada  was  contracting,  hauling  tim- 
bers up  from  the  flank  of  the  Sierras  to  Virginia  City  for  the 
mines.  He  had  a  contract  with  the  Gould  and  Curry  to  supply 
that  mine  with  timbers,  and  had  a  good  many  teamsters  in  his 
employ,  whom  he  paid  every  month.  One  pay  day  he  went  to 
the  office  to  draw  the  needed  money  to  pay  his  men,  where- 
upon the  clerk  in  the  office  said  to  him:  "Mr.  Cleveland,  So 
and  So,  one  of  your  teamsters,  has  asked  me  to  hold  out  his 
wages  that  he  may  collect  them  here." 

Cleveland  said,   "All   right."     But  when  he  went  awav, 


294 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


thinking  over  the  matter,  he  became  angry.  The  more  he 
thought  of  it  the  more  angry  he  became.  The  habit  of  team- 
sters was  to  go  from  Carson  City  up  into  the  mountains,  get 
their  load  of  timber,  and  bring  it  down  to  Carson  City;  then 
the  next  day  haul  it  to  Virginia  City. 

Cleveland  knew  the  hour  when  the  teamsters  came  in  and 
so  went  out  on  the  road  on  foot  to  the  outskirts  of  Carson  to 
meet  this  particular  teamster.  He  came  in  due  time.  He  was 
not  riding  the  near  wheel  mule,  as  was  the  custom,  but  was 
up  on  top  of  the  load  of  timbers,  ten  feet  above  the  street, 
driving  the  mules  with  a  single  rein,  as  was  the  habit.  Cleve- 
land stopped  him  and  said : 

"You  got  your  money  all  right,  did  you?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  the  man. 

"Well,"  said  Cleveland,  "do  vou  Know  what  I  think 
of  you?" 

"No.    I  haven't  the  least  idee."  was  the  reply. 

"Well."  said  Cleveland,  "I  think  if  you  will  come  down 
off  that  load  that  I  can  whip  you  to  a  standstill  in  about  two 
minutes  and  a  half." 

"Is  that  so?"  said  the  teamster. 

"Yes,  it  is,"  said  Cleveland. 

"In  that  case,"  said  the  teamster,  "I  will  be  damned  if  I 
come  down." 

This  disarmed  Cleveland  entirely.  Waiting  a  minute  he 
looked  up  and  said,  "\\'ell.  would  you  come  down  to  take  a 
drink?" 

"Why,"  said  the  man.  "that  is  different."  Whereupon 
they  were  sworn  friends  for  life. 

The  writer  of  this  had  the  honor  of  once  sitting  in  a 
state  convention  in  Carson  City  with  Mr.  Cleveland.  There 
was  a  contesting  delegation  down  from  Virginia  City,  and 
the  men  who  had  charge  of  the  hall  stationed  the  two  dele- 
gations on  different  sides.  It  was  the  old  capitol  building,  which 
was  built  in  the  form  of  a  cross.  The  delegations  from  Vir- 
ginia City  were  on  either  end  of  one  arm  of  this  cross,  and 
the  rest  of  the  convention  in  the  center  between  them.  The 
contesting  delegation  got  control  of  the  convention  and  ])laced 


A.  C.  CLEVELAND.  295 

Judge  Hadyen  of  Dayton  in  the  chair.  The  regular  delega- 
tion was  very  angry.  The  contesting  delegation  was  made  up 
in  great  part  of  natural  fighters.  One  of  them,  a  distinguished 
one,  took  up  his  position  in  front  of  the  speaker's  desk.  It  was 
a  clear  case  that  Hayden  had  been  promised  protection  no  mat- 
ter how  he  ruled.  This  particular  delegate  was  named  Riff 
\\'illiams,  or  at  least  he  was  known  by  that  name.  He  stood 
with  his  profile  to  the  audience,  the  mildest-faced  gentleman 
that  anyone  ever  looked  at;  but  he  was  indifferently  picking  his 
teeth  with  a  fifteen-inch  bowie  knife  which  to  some  people  in 
the  hall  looked  ominous  as  it  was  a  new  tooth  pick  that  they 
were  not  familiar  with — as  a  tooth  pick. 

As  the  proceedings  went  on,  the  anger  increased.  Hay- 
den was  most  arbitrary  in  his  rulings  and  no  appeal  was  per- 
mitted from  them.  When  the  crucial  time  seemed  near  I  whis- 
pered to  Cleveland,  saying :  "Cleve,  when  this  row  starts, 
which  side  are  you  going  to  assimilate  with  ?" 

He  whispered  back,  *T  don't  know.  As  I  was  coming 
into  the  hall  someone  dropped  a  derringer  in  my  pocket,  but 
he  did  not  tell  me  which  way  he  wanted  me  to  shoot." 

The  difficulty  was  finally  quelled  by  a  few  humorous  re- 
marks of  an  outside  delegate. 

Cleve  lived  in  Carson  a  good  many  years ;  married  there, 
was  elected  to  the  state  senate  and  made  a  fine  reputation  for 
his  ability  and  his  perfect  fairness,  and  for  the  clear  sagacity 
he  manifested  in  handling  all  cases.  Later  he  moved  to  White 
Pine  county,  bought  a  great  tract  of  land  and  settled  down  to 
ranching  and  stock-raising. 

For  this  he  was  perfectly  equipped.  He  knew  the  busi- 
ness and  was  personally  perhaps  the  best  horseman  in  Nevada. 

He  went  to  a  friend  one  day  and  said : 

"What  has against  you?" 

The  friend  said:  "I  have  no  idea  in  the  world.  We  have 
been  good  friends  for  several  years  in  Nevada." 

"Well,"  Cleveland  said,  "he  is  talking  about  you.'' 

"Well,"  the  friend  said,  "he  has  no  cause.  I  never  had 
any  business  with  him,  none  whatever,  and  he  is  either  labor- 
ing under  a  mistake  or  he  is  just  mean  on  general  principles." 


296 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


Cleve  went  to  tlie  man  and  told  him,  and  said :    "I  would 

not  follow  that  up,  because is  not  a  bad  man,  and  people 

here  will  believe  him." 

But  he  kept  up  his  talk  and  a  few  days  later  was  on  a 
bender  and  met  Cleveland  in  town.     He  said : 

"Come  and  take  a  drink." 

"No,"  Cleveland  said.     "I  don't  drink." 

The  man.  himself  in  his  cups,  rudely  caught  Cleveland  by 
the  shoulder  and  said  : 

"Ah!     Xone  of  that.     Come  in  and  have  a  drink." 

AAHiereupon  Cleveland  shot  him  through  one  arm,  badly 
wounding  him.  A  few  days  later  the  other  friend  said  to  him : 
"Cleve,  why  did  you  shoot ?" 

He  said:    "He  talks  too  much.     That's  all." 

In  a  little  while  Cleveland's  ranch  became  the  stopping 
place  for  all  passersby,  parth'  because  it  was  a  great  place  to 
stop  and  partly  because  Cleveland  had  no  charges  for  trav- 
elers at  his  ranch.  He  planted  a  great  many  trees.  They 
grew  rapidly  and  the  birds  from  all  over  that  part  of  Nevada 
came  and  made  their  happy  homes  in  them.  Cleveland  gave  the 
word  that  no  gun  should  be  fired  around  the  place  lest  it 
frighten  the  birds.  They  must  have  heard  of  it,  for  with 
each  year  more  and  more  birds  came,  until  the  concert  from 
them — from  lark,  from  robin,  from  oriole,  from  wren,  and 
the  rest — was  a  genuine  oratorio  from  daylight  to  dark,  and 
when  the  night  came  the  sage  thrashers  and  mocking  birds  took 
up  the  refrain  and  kept  it  up  till  morning. 

One  day  when  Cleveland  was  absent,  two  or  three  hunters 
came  along  just  at  dark  and  camped.  They  had  the  hospi- 
talities of  the  home,  the  supper,  the  beds,  the  breakfast.  In 
the  morning  they  began  to  get  out  their  guns.  Celeveland  had 
a  Chinese  cook  whom  he  had  had  for  many  years,  and  the 
Chinaman  became  as  much  absorbed  in  the  place  as  Cleveland 
himself  was.  Cleveland  being  absent,  the  Chinaman  thought  it 
his  duty  to  look  out,  so  he  went  to  them  and  said: 

"What  you  do  dem  guns?" 

One  of  the  men  said :  "We  are  going  to  kill  some  of 
these  birds." 


A.  C.  CLEVELAND.  297 

The  Chinaman  repHecl,  "Not  muchee.  You  no  shoot  'em 
birds." 

"Why  can't  we  shoot  the  birds?"  said  one  of  the  men. 

"You  shootee  one  dese  birds,  old  man  he  come  home  he 
play  hell  with  you !" 

They  put  up  their  guns. 

As  Cleveland  grew  old,  he  grew  more  self-contained, 
but  one  day  a  man  came  along,  stopped  and  got  his  dinner, 
and  during  the  meal  and  afterward  hurled  anathemas  at  a  cer- 
tain gentleman  in  Nevada  whom  he  did  not  like.  He  finally 
wound  up  by  wishing  that  the  man  was  there  that  he  could 
settle  with  him. 

"Settle  how  ?"  asked  Cleveland. 

He  said :   "I  would  beat  him  to  death  if  he  was  here." 

At  which  Cleveland  said :  "Do  you  know  what  you  are 
saying  ?  Do  you  know  that  that  man  you  are  talking  about  is 
something  of  a  fighter?" 

"It  does  not  matter.  If  he  was  here  I  would  beat  him  to 
death." 

"^^>ll,"  said  Cleveland,  "it  is  against  my  religious  princi- 
ples to  have  a  difficulty  with  a  man — that  is.  any  serious  diffi- 
culty— but  that  man  you  are  talking  about  is  a  friend  of  mine 
and  if  you  are  entirely  sure  that  you  are  anxious  for  a  fight 
today,  I'll  take  the  risk  of  getting  in  that  friend's  place." 

That  was  a  different  matter.  The  man  lost  his  desire  for 
a  fight  in  a  moment. 

He  was  for  a  long  time  one  of  the  prominent  men  of 
Nevada,  and  once  was  a  candidate  for  governor  and  should 
have  been  elected  except  that  he  was  running  against  another 
man  as  popular  as  himself.  Governor  Sparks,  and  the  major- 
ity was  for  Sparks. 

For  a  long  time  he  acted  as  the  attorney  of  the  Virginia 
&  Truckee  railroad  to  watch  legislation  in  Carson,  that  nothing- 
could  be  gotten  through  that  was  hostile  to  the  road. 

Finally  he  went  to  Carson,  when  the  legislature  met,  but 
wa?;  seized  with  a  terrible  cold,  the  dav  before  the  meeting, 
which  swiftly  developed  into  pneumonia,  and  he  lay  at  death's 
door  until  the  session  was  over.     He  returned  by  Salt  Lake, 

20 


298  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

and  was  for  a  few  days  under  a  physician's  care.  I  met  the 
physician  and  asked  him  if  Cleveland  was  all  right,  and  he 
replied :  "He  is  going  to  get  up  and  go  home,  but  he  will  not 
live  three  years. 

Two  years  later,  one  Saturday  night,  he  went  to  a  little 
house  near  his  main  residence,  where  the  hired  help  con- 
gregated, asked  the  boys  for  a  newspaper  or  two  and  went  to 
the  house.  Within  five  minutes  one  of  the  boys  followed  him. 
He  was  sitting  in  a  chair  holding  the  newspaper,  and  with  one 
hand  on  the  table,  evidently  reaching  for  his  spectacles.  But 
he  was  stone  dead. 

He  was  a  man  of  wonderful  ability,  a  man  with  a  heart 
bigger  than  his  breast;  a  man  quick  of  temper,  but  just  and 
generous  to  all.  He  was  my  friend,  without  a  moment's  dis- 
agreement, for  forty  years.  He  did  as  much  as  any  other  one 
man  to  make  Nevada  a  state  and  to  keep  it  glorified.  There 
was  hardly  a  man,  woman  or  child  in  the  state  that  did 
not  know  him ;  there  was  not  one  who  was  not  a  mourner 
when  he  died. 


"JOGGLES"  WRIGHT. 

IF  I  ever  heard  his  first  name  I  have  forgotten  it.  Then, 
were  it  published,  not  many  of  his  friends  would  know 
who  was  meant,  for  they  knew  him  only  as  "Joggles." 
He  always  reminded  me  of  a  thoroughbred  horse  that  had 
been  brought  up  in  a  band  of  mustangs.  He  could  outfoot  any 
of  them,  out-jump  any  of  them;  he  had  more  deviltry  in  him 
than  any  of  them,  but  he  was  as  fond  of  their  comradeship 
as  though  they  had  all  been  of  the  blood  royal. 

He  was  of  fine  stock,  that  was  clear,  and  must  have  been 
trained  at  home  in  all  polite  usages,  for  when  the  occasion 
required  it  he  showed  that  he  was  familiar  with  all  the  rules  of 
select  society. 

But  he  must  have  run  away  early  from  home,  for  there 
was  always  a  vagrant,  untamable  side  of  his  nature.  He  was 
from  the  south  somewhere,  Maryland,  or  more  likely  Virginia, 
for  when  he  first  appeared  in  Nevada,  he  quickly  found  he  who 
was  later  Governor  Bradley  of  Nevada,  and  being  broke,  Brad- 
ley instructed  him  in  his  duties,  and  giving  him  a  $200  shep- 
herd dog,  set  him  to  herding  sheep. 

To  give  him  such  a  place  was  on  the  same  plane  of  wis- 
dom as  that  which  had  Paul  Sheridan  assigned  to  the  quarter- 
master's staff  when  the  big  war  was  on. 

Wright  tired  of  the  position  within  three  days,  and  to  vary 
the  monotony,  kettled  the  dog  "just  to  see  him  run,"  though 
the  dog  knew  more  about  herding  sheep  than  Wright  ever 
learned. 

He  went  to  Belmont  and  engaged  to  work  as  a  miner. 

Whether  he  had  known  the  business  before  or  not  I  do 
not  know,  but  he  soon  became  an  expert  miner,  then  a  foreman, 
then  a  superintendent.  He  quickly  showed  that  he  not  only 
understood  mining,  but  further,  that  he  understood  mines,  and 
where  ore  bodies  were  liable  to  make  good,  and  how  to  reach 
them.    Moreover,  he  swiftly  demonstrated  that  he  knew  how  to 


\ 


3UU  AS  I  REMEAIBER  THEM. 

handle  men,  how  to  get  full  work  from  them,  and  at  the  same 
time  hold  their  respect  and  gain  their  affection. 

When  he  began  to  earn  more  money  than  he  ever  had 
before,  he  began  to  look  carefully  at  every  horse  that  came  into 
Belmont,  on  the  pretense  that  he  wanted  a  saddle  horse. 

At  last  he  found  one  to  suit  him,  bought  it,  and  was  seen 
I  iding  the  horse  out  of  town  for  an  hour  or  two  daily. 

A  race-horse  man  came  into  Belmont  one  day  and  an- 
nounced a  desire  to  run  his  horse  600  yards  against  anything 
that  Belmont  could  produce.  Wright  paid  no  attention  to  him 
the  first  day,  but  the  second  day,  when  the  stranger  offered 
to  run  his  animal  at  five  to  four  against  any  horse  that  could 
be  produced,  "Joggles"  closed  with  him  on  a  $500  race. 

"Joggles'  "  horse  was  badly  beaten,  for  the  stranger  had 
a  really  great  horse,  and  "Joggles"  financially  was  where  he 
was  when  he  first  entered  the  camp,  except  that  he  still  had 
his  horse.  He  did  not  mind  the  money  loss,  but  his  pride  was 
badly  shattered. 

\\'hen  he  arose  next  morning  he  went  to  the  stable  and 
had  his  horse  brought  out.  He  looked  him  over,  and  expressed 
the  belief  that  his  judgment  had  not  erred,  that  he  was  satis- 
fied his  horse  only  lacked  confidence  in  himself;  that  if  such 
confidence  could  be  built  up  he  was  sure  he  would  make  a 
four-mile  racer. 

Then  he  proceeded  to  give  the  horse  confidence.  He  found 
an  empty  can  in  the  stable  and  made  a  hole  near  the  top  of 
the  can.  tied  a  rope  in  the  hole  and  the  other  end  to  the  horse's 
tail.  He  got  some  pebbles  and  put  them  in  the  can  ;  and  striking 
the  flank  of  the  horse  with  the  flat  of  his  hand,  at  the  same 
instant  whooped  at  him  like  a  Comanche. 

The  horse  sprang  forward,  and  feeling  the  attachment 
and  hearing  the  rattle  of  the  pebbles,  dashed  down  the  main 
street  in  a  frenzy  of  fear. 

"Joggles"  danced  for  joy.  shouting  like  a  lunatic.  "Didn't 
I  tell  you  he  could  run  if  I  could  only  give  him  confidence?" 

\\'hen  his  hilarity  subsided,  he  said  he  would  make  the 
stable  man  a  present  of  the  horse,  if  he  could  catch  him.  and 
thereafter  went  on  foot  to  and  from  the  mine. 


"JOGGLES"  WRIGHT.  301 

After  he  left  Belmont  he  bought  a  small  band  of  cattle 
and  was  camped  with  them  near  the  sink  of  the  Carson.  One 
morning-  his  head  vaquero  explained  to  him  that  the  camels 
that  had  been  packing  salt  from  the  salt  beds  near  the  sink  to 
the  Virginia  City  quartz  mills — silver  mills  use  large  quan- 
tities of  salt  in  reducing  ore — -were  on  the  range  about  twenty- 
five  miles  away;  that  old  Brigham,  the  patriarch  of  the  herd, 
had  a  mane  four  feet  long;  that  they  could  go  over  there, 
throw  a  rope  on  him,  shear  off  his  mane  and  from  the  hair 
make  two  fine  lariats. 

So,  next  morning  they  saddled  their  horses,  j-ode  to  where 
the  camels  were,  dismounted,  re-cinched  their  saddles,  and  the 
vaquero  urged  his  frightened  horse — horses  are  afraid  of 
camels — near  enough  and  threw  his  lariat  over  old  Brigham's 
head  before  Brigham  realized  what  was  intended. 

But  it  happened  to  be  just  that  season  of  the  year  when 
Brigham  was  sure  that  he  was  lord  of  all  he  surveyed.  When 
the  lariat  began  to  tighten  around  his  neck,  he  did  not  wait, 
but  turned,  and  with  mouth  open  and  ears  back,  started  for  the 
horse.  That  animal,  wild  with  fear,  turned  and  sprang  into  a 
run.  The  vaquero  cut  his  lariat  at  the  saddle  and  fled  for  his 
life,  while  "Joggles"  filled  the  air  with  shouts  of  laughter. 
The  camel  chased  the  vaquero  a  mile  and  then  returned  to  his 
family,  still  proud,  but  disappointed  that  he  did  not  overhaul 
the  man  who  dared  to  throw  the  rope  on  him.  But  he  had  the 
rope  to  show  as  a  proof  of  his  valor.  The  two  men  reached 
home  at  10  p.  m..  the  vaquero  bewailing  the  loss  of  his  lariat. 

Idiree  or  four  years  later  a  newspaper  published  that  the 
camels  had  been  returned  to  Arizona  and  were  running  wild. 
A  friend  seeing  the  article,  asked  "Joggles"  if  he  did  not 
believe  it  would  be  fun  to  hunt  wild  camels.  "Jog'gles"  ex- 
pressed doubts,  but  admitted  that  it  was  great  fun  to  see  an 
angry  camel  hunt  a  man. 

When  Johnnie  Skae  gained  control  of  the  Sierra  Nevada 
on  the  Comstock,  Wright  was  appointed  superintendent.  He 
sank  that  wonderful  incline,  all  in  ore,  twelve  hundred  feet, 
and  made  the  short  cross-cut  in  ore  and  every  one  believed  it 
was  a  greater  bonanza  than  that  of  the  Con-Cal  Virginia.     It 


302 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


was  but  a  pipe  of  ore ;  a  thousand  men  lost  their  fortunes  in  the 
stock,  but  it  was  a  wild  dream  while  it  lasted. 

The  Sierra  Nevada  ground  is  four  miles  north  of  Virginia 
City  proper.  W^right  kept  a  saddle  horse  to  go  to  town  and 
return.  One  morning,  as  he  was  going  from  the  hoisting 
works  to  the  office,  he  met  his  secretary — one  Ford — coming 
from  the  office.  As  they  met,  "Joggles"  said,  "Which  way, 
Ford?"  Ford  replied  that  he  was  going  to  town.  "On  foot?" 
asked  "Joggles."  Ford  said  yes.  "Why  don't  you  take  the 
horse?"  asked  "Joggles."  Ford  replied  that  he  would  like  to  if 
the  horse  was  not  going  to  be  used. 

"Why.  certainly,  take  him;  the  loafer  is  eating  his  head 
off.    What  is  the  use  of  walking?"  said  Wright. 

Ford  saddled  the  horse  and  rode  away.  He  returned  three 
or  four  hours  later.  He  was  a  big  man,  an  athlete,  six  feet 
tall,  and  w'eighed  two  hundred  pounds,  but  as  he  entered  the 
office  where  Wright  was  sitting,  his  lips  were  white.  He 
showed  three  or  four  contusions  on  his  face,  and  was  trem- 
bling like  a  frightened  girl.  Looking  up.  "Joggles"  exclaimed  : 
"Why,  Ford,  you  look  demoralized.  Did  you  have  a  scrap 
down  town?" 

"No,  no  scrap,"  said  Ford,  "but  at  the  highest  place  on  the 
grade  that  horse  of  yours  suddenly  turned,  jumped  ofT  the 
grade,  bucked  to  the  bottom  of  the  ravine  and  tossed  me  on 
a  pile  of  rocks." 

"You  don't  say  so!"  said  "Joggles."  "Why,  confound  him, 
we  will  sell  him;  he  did  the  same  trick  with  me  yesterday." 

But  poor  W^right.  He  burned  his  candle  at  both  ends. 
He  would  work  all  day,  run  with  the  boys  all  night  and  be 
back  to  work  next  day  as  though  nothing  had  happened.  He 
was  a  leader  everywhere,  no  matter  what  strata  of  humanity 
he  happened  to  come  upon. 

Suddenly  one  day  he  collapsed.  One  physician  was  sent 
for ;  he  sent  for  another  and  one  of  them  was  obliged  to  tell  him 
that  he  had  but  a  few  days,  perhaps  but  a  few  hours,  to 
live.  He  received  the  news  in  his  old.  careless  way.  saying: 
"If  it  was  measured  up  maybe  I  have  lived  out  my  full  three- 
score vears  and  ten." 


"JOGGLES"  WRIGHT.  303 

The  morning  before  he  died  Judge  Belknap  bent  over  him 
and  said,  "Wright,  you  ought  to  pull  through.  You  do  not 
look  like  a  dying  man."  To  which  he  replied :  "I  do  not 
seem  to  feel  like  one,  but  those  doctors  say  they  have  a  corner 
on  me." 

I  saw  him  three  hours  before  he  died.  His  mind  was  ram- 
bling, but,  turning  his  head  wearily  on  the  pihow,  he  said : 
"Hurry,  for  the  boys  are  having  a  hard  time  down  on  the 
sixteenth  level." 

The  air  of  Nevada  is  still  filled  with  echoes  of  him.  His 
courage  was  perfect;  his  generosity  of  the  frank  and  joyous 
kind;  he  was  like  Brinsford  Sheridan,  if  he  could  not  help  a 
friend  up,  he  would  lie  down  beside  him.  He  was  careless 
what  kind  of  a  crowd  he  was  in,  but  at  the  same  time  he  had 
an  independence  of  character  which  caused  him  to  hold  him- 
self the  peer  of  the  very  highest. 

He  had  ability  enough  to  justify  him  to  aspire  to  the 
highest  places,  but  he  did  not  care  for  personal  honors ;  he  had 
neither  social  nor  political  ambition;  his  sense  of  humor  was 
limitless ;  he  had  little  reverence,  and  would  have  fired  a  joke 
at  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury ;  when  he  was  superintendent 
of  a  great  mine,  he  would  leave  his  work  any  time  to  seize  the 
rope  of  a  fire  engine  running  to  a  fire,  all  the  way  yelling : 
"Jump  her!  Jump  her,  boys!"  His  animal  spirits  were  in- 
exhaustible; he  struck  Nevada  when  that  state  was  a  central 
station  for  the  world's  sensations ;  he  had  no  more  self-control 
than  an  unbroken  colt;  he  lived  fifty  years  in  fifteen,  and  was 
no  more  disciplined  on  the  last  day  than  when  he  kettled  his 
own  horse  to  see  him  run. 

All  the  time  he  had  no  enemy  except  himself.  This  life 
to  him  was  a  place  to  have  fun  in,  and  at  last  he  cast  it  aside 
as  carelessly  as  he  had  used  it  all  his  days. 


MOSES  KIRKPATRICK. 

BORN  in  Kentucky  in  1829,  educated  in  an  Indiana  col- 
lege, and  then  a  three-years  course  in  the  Louisville, 
Kentucky,  law  school,  he  went  to  St.  Louis  a  partner 
with  the  great  Blair  family  of  lawyers.  He  practiced  there 
until  the  ''call  of  the  wild"  from  California  drew  him  west. 

My  recollection  is  that  he  was,  so  to  speak,  an  aristo- 
cratic emigrant.  Others  drove  oxen  attached  to  red  wagons. 
He  engineered  a  mule  team  and  his  wagon  was  blue  with  red 
fretwork  on  the  box  borders.  That  "fretwork"  is  more  appro- 
priate than  ordinary  mortals  can  understand,  for  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  fretting  in  those  emigrant  trains.  There  was  a 
great  deal  of  labor  attached  to  it,  and  then  there  were  other 
features  to  try  the  n&rves  of  men  and  women.  The  awful  still- 
ness of  the  desert  is  something  which,  after  a  few  days,  gives 
the  one  who  has  borne  it  a  sense  of  relief  to  hear  some  over- 
worn teamster  consign  his  team  to  perdition  in  a  language 
which  is  an  improvement  over  that  which  "our  army  in  Flan- 
ders" used. 

Then  after  the  silence  of  the  day,  the  voices  of  the  night 
come,  for  wolves  "bay  the  moon"  as  well  as  dogs,  and  the 
owl's  hoot,  coming  to  the  ears  of  a  half  asleep  man,  fills  his 
brain  with  visions  of  a  mighty  bird  of  prey  that  is  swooping 
down  to  carry  off  his  team,  his  wagon  and  himself. 

I  recall  that  once  I  stopped  at  old  man  Phillips'  Peoria 
hotel,  fourteen  miles  from  Marysville. 

The  old  man  drank  a  little  in  the  forenoon,  ate  his  dinner 
at  12  m.,  then  slept  for  an  hour,  and  then  drank  a  little  more 
to  be  ready  for  supper.  I  was  young  in  those  days,  and  while 
waiting  for  dinner  the  old  man  was  looking  me  over.  In  the 
language  of  that  day,  he  was  "sizing  me  up." 

Finally  he  said :  "Young  man,  how  long  have  you  been 
in  this  country  ?"     I  told  him. 

"Cross  the  plains  ?"  was  his  next  question. 

I  said,  "No;  I  came  by  steamer  via  Panama." 


MOSES   KIRKPATRICK.  305 

'*\\'el],  you  don't  know  anything,"  was  his  response,  and 
continuing  he  said  :  "I  lived  with  my  wife  twenty-five  years  and 
thought  I  had  got  acquainted  with  her,  but  we  had  not  been 
out  a  week  from  home  on  the  way  here  until  I  found  I  had 
never  had  an  introduction  to  her.  I  had  fixed  up  a  fine  wagon, 
had  it  covered  with  all  care,  then  had  a  fly  put  over  the  cover 
to  chase  the  heat  away. 

"I  drove  the  oxen,  my  wife  sat  under  the  double  cover, 
for  all  the  time  I  was  getting  the  outfit  ready,  my  thought  was, 
*I  must  make  the  old  lady  as  comfortable  as  possible.' 

"But  the  fourth  day  out  I  halted  the  team  at  sundown  and 
began  to  make  camp. 

"Then  my  wife  put  her  head  out  from  beneath  the  wagon 
cover  and  said:     'Are  you  going  to  camp  here?' 

"I  told  her  that  I  thought  I  would,  whereupon  she  re- 
marked in  a  high  soprano  voice  that  'It  is  the  meanest  place 
I've  seen  today.     Why  didn't  you  camp  over  there?' 

"Things  grew  complicated  more  and  more  for  a  week  until 
one  da}-  I  said  to  her:  'Mrs.  Phillips,  you  are  my  wife  and  it's 
all  right,  but  if  you  were  not  my  wife,  I  would' —  I  stopped 
right  there  and  went  after  the  oxen  just  to  work  ofif  my  steam, 
and  I  had  'em  on  a  gallop  in  a  minute." 

Reaching  California,  Kirkpatrick  opened  a  law  office  in 
Camptonville  or  Downieville.  There  were  some  great  lawyers 
there — Thornton.  Stewart,  Rising,  Meredith,  Taylor,  Dunn, 
Hawley.a  splendid  array  of  wonderful  young  lawyers,  but  from 
the  first  Kirkpatrick  was  up  in  the  front  rank  and  soon  made 
a  state  reputation.  He  served  one  term  in  the  legislature,  and 
was  on  the  direct  road  to  political  preferment. 

He  went  with  the  others  to  the  Comstock,  and  the  law 
firm  of  Stewart,  Kirkpatrick  and  Rising  was  soon  leading. 

As  explained  elsewhere,  the  Comstock  at  first  was  found 
pitching  to  the  west.  The  great  lode  is  high  on  the  mountain 
side  at  the  base  of  Mount  Davidson.  All  the  way  down  the 
hill  to  the  east  for  a  third  of  a  mile  the  hillside  was  covered 
with  strata  quartz,  and  all  these  were  located,  some  of  them 
three  deep. 

'idle  lode  pitched  to  the  west,  and  as  great  an  authority 


306  IS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

as  Professor  Silliman  said  the  heart  of  the  lode  would  be  found 
under  Mount  Davidson. 

But  both  Professor  Stewart  and  Professor  Clayton  dis- 
agreed with  that  theory,  declaring  that  there  must  be  a  fault 
somewhere,  that  the  natural  pitch  was  to  the  east.  When  a 
depth  of  about  200  feet  was  reached  the  ledge  gave  out.  Sink- 
ing a  few  feet  and  then  drifting  east  a  few  feet,  it  was  found 
again,  pitching  to  the  east. 

Then  the  question  at  once  arose :  Who  owned  the  ground 
the  surface  of  which  had  been  located?  It  was  finally  decided 
that  the  men  or  company  who  owned  the  apex  of  a  lode  owned 
it  in  all  its  depth,  no  matter  where  it  led.  But  it  required  years 
of  litigation  to  establish  that  rule,  and  some  of  the  cases  in- 
volved millions,  such  fees  were  paid  as  were  never  heard  of 
before,  which  brought  such  an  array  of  legal  talent  to  the 
Comstock  as  was  never  previously  seen  in  so  small  a  place. 
Among  their  names  Kirkpatrick's  was  in  the  front  rank.  At 
one  time  he  left  Nevada  for  a  couple  of  years,  but  the  spell  of 
the  place  drew  him  back. 

The  crash  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  mine  broke  half  the  coast, 
and  Kirkpatrick  was  one  of  the  victims.  He  removed  to  Salt 
Lake  City,  then  was  engaged  by  the  late  Marcus  Daly  to  go  to 
Butte,  Montana,  to  look  after  the  great  Anaconda  legal  busi- 
ness. He  went  to  Ohio  to  try  one  mining  case,  and  his  hand- 
ling of  it  evoked  the  surprise  and  admiration  of  the  foremost 
lawyers  of  that  state. 

Three  or  four  years  later  he  visited  Salt  Lake  Citv  on 
business,  was  seized  with  illness  about  5  p.  m.,  and  died  at 
10  a.  m.  next  day. 

He  was  one  of  the  great  lawyers  of  the  coast,  one  of  the 
foremost  men.  In  his  home  he  was  the  most  devoted  husband 
and  farther;  we  doubt  whether  he  ever  uttered  a  cross  word 
there. 

The  grief  over  his  death  still  lasts,  though  it  is  more  than 
twenty  years  since  he  passed  away.  He  helped  lay  the  founda- 
tions of  three  states ;  for  forty  years  he  was  a  power  on  the 
west  coast,  and  he  went  to  his  grave  covered  with  honors,  and 
without  one  reproach  following  him. 


"ZINC"  BARNES. 

I  BELIEVE  his  initials  were  S.  C,  but  they  soon  degen- 
erated into  "Zinc,"  and  that  is  the  only  name  that  thou- 
sands ever  knew  him  by.  I  have  before  now  written  of  a 
good  many  gentlemen  of  character.  Zinc's  character  was  in 
the  main  fine,  but  there  were  holes  in  it.  He  was  a  royal 
friend,  so  true  that  I  fear  had  a  real  friend  needed  something- 
Zinc  would  have  got  it  for  him ;  and  had  his  own  finances 
been  in  borasco,  he,  by  the  enchantment  of  his  reasoning,  would 
have  drawn  it  from  the  opulence  of  others. 

His  initial  venture  in  Nevada  in  one  of  those  first  two  or 
three  hard  winters  was  on  a  ranch  above  Carson  City,  where 
there  was  some  timber  and  a  little  grass. 

It  may  be  said  that  Zinc  did  not  obtain  the  ranch  for  the 
purpose  of  improving  it  and  making  a  homestead  of  it,  but 
held  it  to  wait  for  the  boom  which  in  those  days  always  canae 
in  the  spring,  when  sometimes  it  was  easier  to  work  a  "sucker" 
than  a  ranch. 

The  former  owner  had  built  a  dugout  to  live  in ;  that  is, 
he  had  "cut  out  a  station"  on  the  side  hill,  put  up  some  logs 
on  the  sides  and  covered  it  with  poles.  On  these  was  piled 
brush,  and  some  earth  which  he  had  packed  down  with  his 
shovel. 

When  in  Carson  someone  asked  him  if  he  had  a  house  on 
his  ranch.  He  answered:  "Why  certainly."  "Tell  us  about  it, 
Zinc!"  was  next  demanded.  "Why,"  replied  Zinc,  "it  has 
rustic  sides,  for  that  is  my  taste,  a  beam  roof,  for  I  always 
admired  beam  roofs,  even  if  costly,  but  I  have  no  door,  rather 
I  have  hung  before  it  a  piece  of  rare  old  tapestry  to  remind 
me  as  I  go  in  or  come  out  of  my  mother,  for  she  had  a  passion 
for  rare  tapestry."  The  questioner  walked  away,  whereupon 
Zinc  turned  to  Joe  Farren  and  asked  him  if  he  had  a  large 
dollar  which  he  could  loan  on  unquestioned  security.  I  was 
told  that  the  tapestry  which  made  the  door  was  manufactured 


508 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


out  of  two  gunny  sacks,  which  is  certainly  as  plausible  as  was 
Zinc's  tapestry  story. 

When  the  country  around  the  Comstock  was  pretty  well 
located,  a  young  man  one  day  pointed  out  to  some  companion*, 
that  the  range  in  which  the  Comstock  was  located  was  cut  in 
twain  by  the  Truckee  river  and  the  mountains  north  of  the 
Truckee  had  never  been  explored  for  mineral  indications,  and 
proposed  to  organize  a  prospecting  party  and  prospect  up  and 
down  that  range.  The  proposition  was  at  once  approved  andj 
a  party  of  fifteen  or  twenty  young  men  started  out  from  about 
where  Reno  now  is.  All  were  riding  small  mustangs  except] 
Barnes,  who  was  mounted  on  a  very  tall  and  long  mule  and  a 
mule  with  a  wide  reputation  for  its  indisposition  to  indulge  in] 
violent  exercise. 

As  they  were  riding  along  the  first  day  the  question  of  I 
food  was  sprung,  whereupon  Zinc  explained  that  manv  things 
which  were  really  good  food  were  ignored  through  a  foolish  j 
prejudice.  "For  instance,"  he  continued,  "there  are  few  dishes] 
more  dainty  and  wholesome  than  a  broiled  rattlesnake."  Hei 
was  laughed  to  scorn,  but  insisted. 

They  descended  from  a  low  hill  into  a  small  grassv  valley 
with   a   clear  stream   running  through   it,   where  thev  deter- 
mined to  camp  for  the  night.     Their  coming  started  up  a  score] 
of  fat  rabbits  and  the  boys  shot  a  dozen  of  them.     One  of  the 
boys  ran  upon  a  big  rattler  in  coil  and  shot  his  head  ofif.     This' 
was  skinned  and  cooked  in  a  separate  frying  pan  and  laid  in  a 
coil  before  the  tin  plate  of  Barnes.     But  amid  the  railing  of' 
the  crowd  Zinc  insisted  on  eating  rabbit,    ^^^'len  he  had  finished 
^"•e  lighted  his  pipe  and  when  all  was  still  suddenly  broke  out 
with : 

"I  still  insist  that  when  a  man  needs  an  appetizer  there  is 
nothing  finer  than  a  cooked  rattler,  but  after  riding  all  day  a 
man  does  not  need  an  appetizer,  and  so  can  choose  Avhat  to 
eat.  and  under  such  circumstances  the  man  who  does  not  choose 
rabbit  is  off  his  base." 

When  the  country  began  to  have  a  mineral  look,  they  all 
dismounted,  one  man  led  the  animals  and  the  others  spread  out] 
on  the  hillsides  prospecting.     In  that  way  they  continued  to 


"ZINC"  BARNES.  309 

wander  further  and  further  north,  when  one  day  they  ran  upon 
a  l)and  of  renegade  Piutes  or  Modocs  in  their  war  paint.  The 
bovs  ran  to  their  animals,  sprang  upon  them  and  beat  a  retreat. 
But  Zinc  could  get  no  speed  out  of  his  mule  and  he  called  to  the 
others.  "Hold  on,  boys  !  Hold  on !  There  is  only  a  little  band 
of  them.    We  can  lick  them  easily." 

But  his  cries  were  unheeded.  Suddenly  an  arrow  aimed  at 
Zinc  fell  a  little  short  and  struck  the  mule  just  beside  the  mule's 
tail.  This  aroused  the  mule,  and  seeing  or  scenting  the  sav- 
ages, he  laid  his  ears  back  and  started  at  a  pace  which  soon 
overtook  the  mustangs. 

As  Zinc  swept  by  his  companions  he  cried  to  them :  "Come 
on !  Come  on !  You  sons  of  guns.  If  there  is  one  Indian  after 
you  there's  a  million." 

He  held  ever  after,  that  the  point  of  view  was  everything 
sometimes. 

After  awhile  Zinc  bought  out  the  title  of  a  man  whose 
claim  lapped  over  on  Bonanza  ground,  and  his  was  the  oldest 
title. 

Zinc  demanded  possession  of  the  ground  and  an  account- 
ing, and  being  refused,  began  suit. 

He  enlisted  the  services  of  a  brilliant  lawyer,  and  no  case 
was  ever  better  prepared  or  presented. 

It  was  tried  in  the  federal  court.  Judge  Sawyer  of  San 
Francisco  presiding. 

When  the  hearing  was  over  and  it  came  time  to  charge  the 
jury,  the  judge  descended  from  the  bench,  went  and  stood  in 
front  of  the  jury  and  for  half  an  hour  expounded  the  law  in  a 
wav  which  was  an  astonishment  to  all  that  heard  it. 

Zinc  listened  until  the  close,  then  turning  to  his  lawyer, 
said :  "Sawyer  is  a  perfectly  unbiased,  unprejudiced  judge, 
is  he  not?"  "Why  do  you  ask?"  was  the  reply.  "O,  nothing 
much."  said  Zinc.  "I  was  only  thinking  that  if  that  is  an  un- 
l)iased  opinion,  what  a  splendid  attorney  he  would  make  if 
he  were  really  interested  on  one  side  of  a  case." 

Zinc  finally  drifted  across  the  country  from  Bodie  to 
Pioche. 

When  Zinc  reached  Pioche  his  services  were  needed.    The 


310  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

great  trial  was  on  between  the  Raymond  and  Ely  and  the 
Meadow  valley  mining  companies,  and  some  people  thought 
that  Zinc  had  a  sort  of  hypnotic  power  over  a  jury. 

It  was  there  that  he  gave  voice  to  his  idea  of  an  honest 
man — "a  son  of  a  gun  who  will  stay  bought." 

The  air  of  Nevada  is  still  filled  with  the  echoes  of  his 
quaint  and  terse  sayings. 

He  had  the  exact  estimate  of  every  man  he  came  in  con- 
tact with  and  could  write  a  full  biography  of  many  of  them  in 
an  epigram.  He  was  an  all  around  genius,  but  had  no  terminal 
points ;  no  fixedness  of  purpose,  no  apparent  care  for  what  hap- 
pened the  day  before  or  what  would  happen  the  day  following. 

Thousands  of  men  with  less  ability  have  made  for  them- 
selves fortunes  and  high  names,  but  he  seemed  to  care  for 
neither.  He  looked  upon  life  as  a  game,  and  that  to  lose  was 
no  sign  of  want  of  ability,  but  a  want  of  luck. 

He  looked  upon  life  as  a  game,  and  that  to  lose  was  no 
sign  of  want  of  ability,  but  a  want  of  luck. 

He  died  a  painful  death  in  Idaho,  but  those  who  were 
with  him  said  despite  his  great  sufferings,  his  quaint  remarks 
lingered  to  the  last,  and  he  died  just  as  he  had  lived,  looking 
upon  death  as  merely  a  gateway  beyond  which  there  was  an- 
other land  to  explore,  but  from  which  the  point  of  view  would 
be  everything. 


H 


GENERAL  THADDEUS  H.  STANTON. 

E  was  a  major  when  I  knew  him  first.  He  made  his 
headquarters  at  Sah  Lake  City  during  the  years  that 
Major  General  Alex.  McDowell  McCook  was  sta- 
tioned at  Fort  Douglas.  He  had  all  the  elements  of  a  great 
soldier ;  he  was  a  perfectly  equipped  great  citizen.  When  he 
reached  Salt  Lake  he  bore  the  name  of  "Crook's  fighting  pay- 
master." 

That  came  from  the  fact  that  during  all  the  years  that 
General  Crook  was  fighting  the  Indians  on  the  frontier,  when- 
ever a  fight  was  on,  it  was  Stanton's  fashion  to  forget  that  he 
was  paymaster,  and  taking  a  gun  went  into  the  ranks  with  the 
regular  infantry  and  fought  so  long  as  any  Indians  were  in 
sight.  Of  course  the  soldiers  all  swore  by  him.  He  did  not 
do  it  because  he  loved  fighting,  but  he  had  a  theory  that  if  in 
a  fight  with  Indians,  other  things  being  about  equal,  the 
white  man  can  hold  up  steady  for  a  few  minutes,  the  red  man 
will  give  way ;  and  his  presence  in  a  company,  his  presence  and 
words  of  cheer,  and  the  absence  of  all  fear  on  his  part,  were 
calculated  to  hold  the  men  up  into  the  fight,  when  otherwise 
a  panic  might  have  come  upon  them. 

His  general  bearing  was  that  of  a  light-hearted,  jovial, 
kindly  man.  Only  a  few  of  us  knew  how  fine  a  scholar  and 
profound  a  thinker  he  was,  or  how  intense  was  his  patriotism. 

When  stationed  in  Salt  Lake  he  made  frequent  journeys 
to  all  the  military  stations  in  this  intermountain  region,  to  pay 
off  the  soldiers.  Once  he  went  to  Fort  Washakie  in  northern 
Wyoming  in  midwinter.  From  the  railroad  station  at  some 
point  in  Wyoming — Rawlins,  I  believe — the  trip  was  by  stage 
some  100  miles,  and  the  thermometer  showed  over  30  degrees 
below  zero. 

When  he  reached  the  fort  the  officers  all  exerted  them- 
selves to  minister  to  him  and  make  him  comfortable.  When  at 
last  he  had  been  served  with  a  hot  meal  and  was  fairly  warmed 


312  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

through,  some  of  the  officers  asked  him  if  he  had  not  nearly 
perished  in  the  intense  cold. 

He  assured  them  that  while  the  air  was  a  little  bracing  and 
might  have  seemed  really  cold  to  boys — there  were  several 
young  lieutenants  stationed  there — it  was  just  wholesome  to  a 
veteran.  This  bantering  went  on  until  some  of  the  young 
officers  told  him  that  he  was  born  before  the  real  tough  stock 
of  Americans  had  appeared;  that  old  chaps  like  himself  had 
not  the  constitution  to  stand  a  real  endurance  test.  To  this 
Stanton  replied  that  it  would  be  easy  to  demonstrate  that  right 
then.  At  Washakie  there  is  a  big  hot  spring,  the  waters  of 
which  below  the  spring  are  caught  in  a  pool;  so  Stanton  pro- 
posed that  they  all  go  down  and  take  a  bath  in  the  spring. 
Half  a  dozen  of  them  accepted  and  disrobed  as  Stanton 
did,  went  into  the  pool,  then  out.  naked,  following  Stanton, 
left  the  water  and  lay  down  on  a  snow  bank  close  by,  and 
repeated  this  three  or  four  times.  It  is  the  wonder  of  the 
world  that  it  did  not  kill  them  all.  When  the  young  officers 
got  warm  enough  to  talk,  they  admitted  that  possibly  a  few 
tough  men  might  have  been  born  before  the  stalwart  age 
came  in. 

When  here  the  major  always  dressed  in  plain  clothes  or 
undress  uniform,  except  when  it  was  pay  day  at  Fort  Douglas. 
Then  he  was  always  in  full  uniform  and  on  such  days,  while 
he  had  on  that  uniform,  no  persuasion  could  induce  him  to 
enter  a  saloon. 

VJkh  him  the  army  of  the  United  States  represented  the 
glory  of  the  republic,  the  flag  it  bore  was  a  standard  so  sacred 
that  all  those  in  whose  immediate  custody  it  was  entrusted 
should  always,  when  on  duty,  show  that  their  lives  were  con- 
secrated to  its  defense — "their  lives,  their  fortunes  and  sacred 
honor."  His  loyalty  was  something  beautiful  to  see.  The 
president  of  the  United  States  was  his  commander-in-chief,  and 
if  any  one  in  his  presence  had  aught  to  say  in  criticism  of  him. 
Stanton  would  walk  away. 

But  he  was  just  as  loyal  to  friends,  ^^^^en  Mr.  Cleve- 
land was  elected  president,  he  sent  a  gentleman  to  Utah  with  an 
appointment  as  surveyor  general  of  the  territory.     He  was  a 


GENERAL  THADDEUS  H.  STANTON.         313 

finely  educated  and  accomplished  gentleman,  a  kindly  man 
withal  and  on  his  arrival  at  Salt  Lake  wanted  to  be  on  good 
terms  with  all  the  people.  But  he  evidently  had  never  been 
west  and  he  brought  with  him  a  somewhat  narrow  provin- 
cialism. 

He  was  met  on  his  arrival  by  Mr.  Barratt,  a  prominent 
Democrat,  who  naturally  invited  him  to  the  Alta  club  and 
introduced  him  to  the  gentlemen  there.  The  call  lasted  perhaps 
forty  minutes,  when  Mr.  Barratt  escorted  him  to  his  hotel.  On 
the  street  the  new  surveyor  general  suddenly  turned  to  Mr. 
Barratt  and  with  mingled  surprise  and  gratification,  said : 
"Barratt,  do  you  know  that  from  that  hasty  visit  I  would  judge 
that  60  per  cent  of  those  gentlemen  in  the  club,  in  intelligence, 
would  average  very  well  with  the  men  of  Illinois." 

Barratt,  himself  an  old  Baltimore  thoroughbred,  left  him 
at  the  hotel  and  then  went  to  find  Stanton. 

To  him  he  recounted  what  the  new  federal  appointee  had 
said. 

Stanton  listened  and  then  said:  "This  is  serious,  Bar- 
ratt, I  must  think  it  over."  He  took  the  first  conveyance 
for  Fort  Douglas  and  told  General  McCook.  "You  are  sure 
he  said  it,  Stanton?"  said  McCook.  Then  he  made  a  brief 
oration,  made  up  in  great  part  of  compound  adjectives. 
Finally  he  said :  "Next  Thursday  is  Jackson  day.  It  is  only 
fair  to  pay  our  respects  to  this  new  federal  officer.  I  will  give 
a  reception  on  that  day  and  invite  the  gentleman  to  attend. 
I  will  invite  a  few  others  to  make  everything  agreeable.  Sit 
down  and  help  me  make  out  the  list." 

The  reception  was  set  for  10  a.  m.  and  a  good  many  car- 
riage loads  of  gentlemen  were  there  on  the  hour.  General  Mc- 
Cook and  all  his  officers,  in  full  uniform,  received  them  and 
made  them  welcome. 

The  general  had  brewed  one  of  his  famous  punches.  Those 
McCook  punches  besides  being  wonderful  to  the  palate  were 
loaded  down  with  character.  They  looked  innocent  as  lambs 
and  harmless  as  doves  on  the  surface,  but  in  their  depths  lay 
coiled  serpents  as  potential  as  cobras.  Of  course  the  first  thing 
was  to  drink  the  health  of  the  president;  then  to  the  memory 

21 


314 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


of  the  hero  of  New  Orleans ;  then  to  the  army  of  the  United 
States;  then  to  the  flag;  then  to  the  governor  of  the  territory. 

Evidently  the  new  surveyor  general  had  never  found  anv 
such  beverage  before  and  this  was  not  only  wonderful,  but  free. 
Within  fifteen  minutes  he  volunteered  to  make  a  speech.  It 
was  cheered  vociferously  and  he  made  another.  Then  his 
health  was  proposed  and  drunk  with  irrepressible  enthusiasm 
and  so  he  made  a  third  speech  which  broke  down  party  lines 
and  Democrats  and  Republicans  were  all  brothers. 

In  forty-five  minutes  after  his  arrival  he  was  asleep  under 
the  table  and  the  expression  on  Stanton's  face  was  something 
delicious  to  see.  Mr.  Barratt  acknowledged  his  obligation 
to  him. 

^^  hen  the  kaiser's  brother,  in  his  journey  around  the 
world,  reached  Salt  Lake,  he  stopped  off  for  a  day's  rest.  His 
attendants  were  a  count  and  a  baron.  I  think  that  Stanton 
had  received  a  request  from  Washington  to  make  their  visit 
as  pleasant  as  possible.  As  a  representative  of  the  army  he 
met  them  and  did  what  he  could  for  them.  The  prince  had  a 
cold,  and  Stanton  had  Dr.  Allen  or  Dr.  Hamilton  visit  him 
and  advise  him  not  to  go  out  in  the  night  air. 

Thereupon,  when  the  prince  was  disposed  of,  Stanton  took 
the  count  and  baron  to  the  Alta  club.  The  gentlemen  of  the 
club  did  what  they  could  to  make  the  night  pleasant  for  the 
distinguished  guests.  About  2  a.  m.  the  major  escorted  them 
back  to  the  hotel.  It  was  cold  and  sloppy  weather,  I  think  in 
February.  It  had  stormed  during  the  evening,  a  half  rain 
half  snow  down-pour,  and  the  sidewalk  was  slippery  and  far 
from  dry.  Reaching  the  hotel  the  major  said  the  count 
insisted  on  sitting  down  on  the  sidewalk  and  as  he  did  so  he 
remarked:  "I  haf  been  der  vurld  around  und  like  Salt  Lake  I 
finds  nottings." 

With  a  proper  expression  of  sorrow  the  major  told  me  of 
it  the  next  day,  and  admitted  that  it  was  bad.  but  added  that 
it  was  impossible  to  do  the  great  German  empire  and  emperor 
too  much  honor  when  their  representatives  came  to  this 
country. 

The  above  gives  a  faint  idea  of  the  joyous  side  of  General 


GENERAL  THADDEUS  H.  STANTON.         315 

Stanton's  character.  There-  was  a  boyish  side  to  him  which 
never  grew  old,  but  his  inner  nature  was  that  of  a  hero  and 
statesman.  Could  more  than  one  recent  candidate  for  presi- 
dent have  heard  him  for  half  an  hour  discuss  the  principles 
upon  which  this  government  of  ours  was  founded,  the  vital 
points  which  were  to  outline  what  should  be,  with  proper  lim- 
itations, beyond  which  neither  legislators  nor  executives  might 
go :  how  representatives  were  but  to  execute  the  people's  wiH 
and  how  they  were  to  be  checked  if  they  attempted  either  exper- 
iments or  usurpations  beyond  that ;  how  the  civil  power  mu.'^,t 
always  dominate  up  to  the  point  of  actual  war ;  how  until  that 
point  should  be  reached  both  the  army  and  navy  were  as  much 
subject  to  the  civil  authority  as  the  humblest  citizen ;  how 
patriotism  did  more  to  make  a  man  a  good  citizen  than  all 
the  schools,  and  love  for  the  flag  was  not  only  a  duty  but  an 
inspiration ;  those  candidates  would  no  longer  advocate  some 
things  which  they  have  advocated. 

He  went  from  Salt  Lake  to  Denver  and  finally  was  sta- 
tioned in  Washington,  D.  C,  as  assistant  paymaster  general, 
and  with  the  coming  of  the  Spanish- American  war  became  pay- 
master-general. 

The  work  he  performed  then  was  marvelous.  He  had  the 
regular  and  volunteer  armies  to  look  after,  a  thousand  stations 
from  Porto  Rico  to  the  Philippines  to  take  care  of  and  keep  in 
order,  and  when  his  work  was  critically  analyzed,  not  one  error 
on  his  part  was  found. 

He  was  retired  shortly  after  the  war  closed,  and  a  little 
later  died.  He  visited  Salt  Lake  some  half  year  previous  to 
his  death.  He  was  the  same  Stanton,  though  he  had  aged 
much,  and  it  was  clear  that  he  had  not  long  to  live. 

There  was  all  the  old  exquisite  humor,  the  same  joyous 
personality ;  the  same  old  love  for  friends ;  the  same  clear 
instinct  of  right  and  wrong ;  the  same  devotion  to  native  land ; 
the  same  reverence  for  the  flag — the  same  invincible,  irrepres- 
sible spirit,  the  same  high  heroic  soul.  He  lived  the  perfect 
citizen  and  soldier,  and  if  his  spirit  was  questioned  in  the 
beyond,  he  was  able  to  answer :  "It  was  a  little  rough  down 
there  at  times,  but  if  you  will  look,  you  will  find  that  my  books 
every  night  showed  an  exact  balance." 


COLONEL  WILLIAM  MONTAGUE  FERRY. 

ONE  of  the  strong  men  that  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
helped  to  give  direction  to  the  thought  and  the  pohtical 
history  of  Utah  was  Col.  W.  M.  Ferry.  He  came  of 
a  sterling  race.  His  ancestors  emigrated  from  France  to 
England  and  then  to  Massachusetts.  The  original  Ferry  in 
this  country,  at  least  to  which  any  date  attaches,  was  Charles 
Ferry,  who  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  government  of 
the  Massachusetts  colony  at  Springfield,  in  1675. 

Colonel  William  Montague  Ferry  was  a  child  of  the  fron- 
tier, having  been  born  at  Michilimiackimal,  Michigan,  in  1824, 
when  Michigan  was  practically  a  wilderness.  He  was  the 
eldest  son  of  Rev.  Wm.  M.  and  Amanda  White  Ferry.  The 
elder  Ferry  was  a  Presbyterian  clergyman  who  went  to  3*1  ich- 
igan  as  a  missionary.  He  was  a  devout  Christian;  but  he  be- 
longed to  the  Church  Militant,  not  as  a  fighter,  but  as  one  with- 
out fear.  Before  he  moved  there  to  begin  his  work,  he  sailed 
with  two  Indians  in  a  canoe  around  Lake  Michigan,  over 
to  Chicago,  when  it  had  not  a  thousand  people,  and  up  to  the 
beautiful  site  now  occupied  by  Milwaukee. 

Then  he  took  charge  of  the  Mackinaw  mission,  and  for 
several  years  maintained  it. 

It  was  there  that  Colonel  Wm.  jNI.  Ferry  was  born.  In 
1834  the  elder  Ferry,  with  his  little  family,  removed  to  the 
present  site  of  Grand  Haven,  Michigan,  the  family  being  the 
first  white  settlers  of  Ottowa  county.  There  Colonel  Ferry 
grew  to  manhood.  That  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  make  clear 
that  there  is  nothing  of  savagery  or  hardship  on  the  frontier 
that  he  did  not  learn  while  yet  a  boy  to  accept  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

His  educational  advantages  were  such  as  the  frontier 
could  furnish.  When  a  child  he  was  taught  to  write  and 
cypher  in  sand  boxes,  such  as  were  in  use  in  the  Indian  mission. 

Colonel  Ferry's  father's  experience  in  college  was  a  hard 


COLONEL  WILLIAM  MONTAGUE  FERRY.     317 

one  in  working  his  way  and  he  did  not  wish  it  repeated  by  his 
sons.  But  he  was  a  teacher  himself,  and  had  a  fine  hbrary ; 
then  two  eccentric  men  came  to  Grand  Haven  and  each  had  a 
choice  hbrary  which  they  united  and  to  this  the  boy  had  per- 
petual access.  One  season  he  spent  in  Massachusetts  and  there 
attended  the  Sanderson  Academy,  then  in  charge  of  Henry  L. 
Dawes,  who  later  was  Senator  Dawes  of  Massachusetts. 

After  he  was  twenty,  young  Ferry  nearly  lost  his  life  in 
trying  to  save  people  on  a  stranded  ship,  and  being  through 
this  unable  to  work,  he  was  a  year  in  Kalamazoo  College, 
standing  high  in  his  class.  From  childhood  he  was  an  insati- 
able reader.  All  his  life,  at  home  or  on  a  journey,  if  his  pockets 
were  searched,  a  book,  generally  a  classic,  could  be  found.  The 
frontier  itself  with  its  loneliness,  its  lakes  and  forests  with  their 
manifold  voices  is  a  pretty  good  school  to  thoughtful  boys. 

Once  he  ran  upon  a  pompous  clergyman  who  gave  away 
the  fact  of  his  dense  ignorance  every  time  he  opened  his  mouth, 
but  he  knew  a  few  words  and  phrases  of  Latin,  and  these  he 
was  prone  to  unload  on  any  audience.  Tired  at  last.  Colonel 
Ferry  one  day  told  him  that  it  was  an  accomplishment  to  speak 
a  foreign  tongue,  but  dangerous  unless  the  speaker  knew  the 
roots  of  the  language.  Then  said:  "Hear  me!"  Then  for 
five  minutes  he  hurled  imprecations  at  the  man,  which  were 
enough  to  cure  him  of  his  habit.  The  language  used  by  the 
colonel  was  high-class  Chippewa. 

As  the  colonel  grew  up  he  mastered  the  trades  of  a 
machinist  and  engineer.  His  mechanical  genius  was  a  gift. 
All  his  life  if  anything  was  going  wrong  in  machinery  in  mo- 
tion, he  would  detect  it  in  a  moment  by  the  sound,  or  rather 
by  the  want  of  rhythm  in  the  sound. 

Because  of  the  floods  of  water  encountered  in  the  Ontario 
mine  at  Park  City,  Utah,  it  was  found  necessary  to  install  a 
great  Cornish  pump.  It  was  a  massive  affair  intended  to  keep 
the  mine  drained  to  a  depth  of  1200  feet.  It  had  been  running 
but  a  few  days  when  Colonel  Ferry  drove  past  in  his  buggy. 
The  great  engine  was  knocking  badly.  The  colonel  was  an 
old  man,  but  he  stopped  his  buggy,  and  calling  a  man  who  hap- 
l)ened  to  be  outside  the  works,  bade  him  tell  the  engineer  that 


318  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

he  wished  to  speak  to  him.  In  a  moment  the  engineer  came  to 
the  buggy  and  said:  "What  can  I  do  for  you,  Colonel?" 

"Nothing  for  me,"  was  the  reply,  "but  why  do  you  net 
stop  the  knocking  of  that  engine?" 

"I  have  racked  my  brains  over  that  until  I  am  getting  rat- 
tled." said  the  engineer.  "I  have  tried  water  and  oil  and  a 
dozen  other  things.  I  have  begun  to  think  there  is  a  spirit  in 
that  cylinder  that  is  knocking  to  get  out." 

"There  is  no  elasticity  in  oil  or  water,"  said  the  colonel, 
"but  there  is  plenty  of  it  in  air.  Bore  a  hole  about  the  size  of 
a  gimlet  into  the  cylinder  two  or  three  inches  from  the  cylinder 
head  on  the  exhaust  end;  the  air  will  make  a  cushion  that  will 
serve  as  a  buffer  and  should  stop  the  knocking." 

That  done,  the  spirit  must  have  escaped  through  the 
hole,  for  there  was  never  any  more  knocking. 

The  colonel  had  hardly  finished  his  education — of  mind 
and  hand — when  he  became  noted  as  a  skilful  draughtsman, 
engineer  and  inventor.  He  was  given  several  patents  for  his 
inventions.  In  1856  he  was  elected  a  regent  of  the  University 
of  Michigan,  which  place  he  held  until  he  went  to  the  war. 

The  previous  year  he  had  erected  the  Ottowa  Iron  \\'orks, 
a  large  foundry  and  machine  shop,  near  Grand  Haven,  and 
was  engaged  largely  in  the  manufacturing  of  steam  engines, 
stationary  and  for  lake  boats,  his  own  saw  mills  which  revo- 
lutionized the  sawing  of  timber  in  the  old  northwest,  pro- 
pellers and  all  kinds  of  machinery. 

In  1851  he  married  Miss  Jeanette  Hollister,  and  perhaps 
had  he  searched  the  world  over  he  never  could  have  found  a 
woman  so  gentle  and  tender,  so  serene  under  trials,  and  yet  so 
strong  and  steady-minded  as  the  wife  he  married.  Surely  not 
one  who  could  have  so  steadied  his  impetuous  and  sometimes 
imperious  nature.  His  business  prospered ;  he  was  gaining  in 
the  estimation  of  men ;  the  world  was  bright  before  him  when 
the  call  for  soldiers  came  in  1861. 

He  was  in  politics  an  aggressive  Democrat;  he  had 
grieved  exceedingly  over  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln ;  all  his 
life  he  had  heard  his  father  preach  peace  and  good  will;  after 


COLONEL  WILLIAM  MONTAGUE  FERRY.     319 

a  hard  childhood  and  boyhood  peace  and  plenty  had  come  to 
him,  and  hope  was  beckoning  him  on  to  fortune  and  fame. 

But  there  was  duty.  Had  not  his  grandfather  and  grand 
uncle  fought  side  by  side  through  the  Revolutionary  war? 
Had  not  his  father  come  to  Michigan  when  it  was  but  a  wil- 
derness, bringing  little  save  a  Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  rifle  in 
the  other  and  with  these  entered  the  mighty  wild  to  subdue  it? 
Behind  him  was  an  ancestry  that  whether  they  knew  much  of 
the  Bible  or  not,  did  know  how  to  handle  a  gun.  And  now  his 
native  land  was  assailed,  its  integrity  was  threatened ;  its  flag 
had  been  fired  upon.  He  did  not  hesitate  a  moment.  He 
entered  as  a  private  in  the  Fourteenth  Michigan  Infantry.  He 
was  in  the  hell  of  Pittsburg  Landing;  at  the  siege  of  Corinth; 
in  all  the  battles  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee ;  then  having 
been  promoted  through  all  the  grades  to  a  captaincy,  he  became 
an  aid  to  General  McPherson  in  General  Grant's  army,  was 
wounded  at  Vicksburg,  and  when  he  was  exulting  over  the  fall 
of  that  stronghold,  his  younger  brother  Noah  was  dying  a  sol- 
dier's death  on  the  red  field  of  Gettysburg. 

When  first  promoted  to  his  captaincy.  Colonel  Ferry,  by 
direct  appointment  of  President  Lincoln,  was  assigned  sub- 
sistence commissary.  Early  in  1862  he  made  a  report,  making- 
clear  the  lamentable  condition  of  the  soldiers  in  field  and  hos- 
pital, owing  to  the  lack  in  the  regular  army  rations  to  provide 
for  the  wounded  and  sick,  and  condemning  the  sutler  sys- 
tem as  a  robbing  of  the  soldiers. 

General  Rosecrans  approved  his  report,  but  was  powerless 
to  inaugurate  a  remedy,  and  told  Captain  Ferry  that  anv  one 
attempting  an  innovation  would  be  summarily  dismissed  from 
the  service.  But  because  of  his  sympathy  for  the  suffering 
men  and  because  he  knew  that  he  was  right,  the  captain 
assumed  the  responsibility,  ordered  from  the  north,  on  gov- 
ernment account,  what  he  wanted,  and  introduced  a  commuta- 
tion of  rations,  through  which,  in  lieu  of  such  portions  of  the 
regular  rations  as  soldiers  did  not  desire,  they  could  receive 
such  other  articles  as  were  needful  for  their  health  and  com- 
fort, limited  to  the  prescribed  cost  of  the  regular  rations. 

His  first  monthly  report  to  the  subsistence  department  at 


320 


AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 


\\"ashing-ton,  containing-  full  explanations  of  what  he  had  done 
and  was  doing,  was  emphatically  and  absolutely  condemned. 

To  this  Captain  Ferr)^  replied  more  fully,  explaining  the 
need  of  the  change,  pointed  out  that  the  results  were  most  sat- 
isfactory and  reminding  the  department  that  the  innovation 
involved  no  extra  expense.  His  plan  received  no  formal  sanc- 
tion, but  it  was  not  forbidden,  and  so  was  continued  and  soon 
became  an  unwritten  law.  After  the  close  of  the  war  it  crystal- 
ized  into  a  rule  in  the  department  and  was  finally  approved  by 
Congress,  the  sutler  system  abolished,  and  now  officers  and 
their  families,  soldiers  in  rank  and  hospital  may  select  any  kind 
of  rations  they  desire  within  the  cost  of  regular  rations. 

Immediately  after  the  fall  of  Vicksburg.  with  its  garrison 
and  the  Federal  army  of  ninety  thousand  men  in  a  region  that 
had  been  laid  waste.  General  Grant  ordered  Colonel  Ferry  to 
provide  at  Vicksburg  as  he  had  the  previous  year  at  Corinth, 
such  additions  to  the  rations  as  the  health  of  the  army  required, 
and  "any  needed  luxuries"  for  the  soldiers  in  the  field  and 
hospitals,  and  General  Tecumseh  Sherman,  after  Corinth,  said 
to  him :  "Ferry,  you  have  left  your  mark  in  the  army,  and  it 
will  stand  to  your  honor  as  long  as  the  United  States  has 
an  army." 

After  the  death  of  General  McPherson,  and  the  promo- 
tion of  Captain  Ferry  to  the  grade  of  lieutenant-colonel,  he  was 
ordered  by  General  Grant  to  proceed  to  Memphis,  Tenn.,  to 
take  charge  of  the  receipts  and  disbursements  of  army  supplies 
for  the  armies  of  the  South  and  Southwest.  His  responsibili- 
ties there  were  very  great,  but  he  found  time  to  write  regularly 
to  Harper's  Weekly  and  occasionally  to  the  Chicago  Tribune 
and  other  journals.  He  also  wrote  up  his  own  experiences  in 
the  army  with  a  view  of  publishing  them.  He  was  a  terse  and 
accomplished  writer,  while  his  absolute  truthfulness  shone 
out  in  every  line. 

His  perfect  mastery  of  the  French  language  brought  him 
offers  of  honorable  and  lucrative  positions  abroad,  but  he 
declined  them. 

His  remembrances  were  never  completed,  nor  published, 
because  of  an  accident.     His  headquarters  in  Memphis  were  in 


COLONEL  WILLL/\M  MONTAGUE  FERRY.     321 

the  Bradley  block.  The  building  was  filled  from  basement  to 
roof  with  army  supplies,  some  of  them,  like  barreled  pork,  very 
heavy.  The  building  had  been  weakened  by  taking  out  par- 
titions, and  there  were  whispers  that  it  was  unsafe. 

The  colonel  had  but  just  left  the  building  when  it  wen!; 
down  in  a  crash  that  shook  the  city.  The  Bradley  block  was 
simply  a  vuin. 

All  the  colonel's  manuscripts  were  lost.  It  was  a  great 
pity.  His  book  could  not  have  failed  to  be  most  interesting. 
His  "Guarding  Rebel  Property"  was  translated  into  many  lan- 
guages. 

A\'hile  the  colonel  was  in  Memphis  an  inspector  was  sent 
there  from  Washington  to  straighten  out  some  irregularities, 
but  he  never  troubled  Colonel  Ferry.  Y^ars  after  the  war  the 
inspector  and  the  colonel  met  at  an  army  reunion,  when  the 
inspector  said:  "Colonel,  do  you  know  why  I  did  not  investi- 
gate your  business  in  Memphis?  On  the  back  of  my  instruc- 
tions the  department  had  written,  'Let  Ferry  alone.  He's 
straight.'  " 

^^dlen  the  war  was  over  the  colonel  with  an  honorable 
discharge,  returned  home.  Perhaps  no  returning  soldier 
ever  had  a  more  jovous  home-coming  than  he.  He  went  away 
a  private  soldier ;  by  his  worth  alone  he  had  won  his  way 
through  all  the  grades  to  lieutenant-colonel ;  the  war  had 
brought  out  all  that  had  been  incomplete  in  his  nature ;  but 
he  returned  as  he  had  gone  away,  a  Christian  gentleman,  and 
Jeffersonian  Democrat. 

To  receive  him  were  wife  and  children,  his  aged,  heroic 
father,  his  brothers,  one  perhaps  the  brightest  in  the  family, 
the  other  soon  to  enter  for  several  terms  the  United  States 
senate,  and  his  friends,  which  included  most  of  the  population 
of  Michigan. 

He  remained  there  fifteen  years,  was  tendered  many  high 
offices  and  filled  a  few  of  them,  notably  all  school  offices,  and 
as  a  delegate  helped  to  form  a  new  Constitution  for  Michigan. 

Then  his  mining  interests  called  him  to  Utah.  Four  sons 
and  two  daughters  had  been  born  to  him ;  the  sons  died  when 
children,  but  the  daughters  still  remain.  Mrs.  Allen,  with  her 


2>22  AS  I  RE^^IEAJBER  THEM. 

mother  in  Park  City,  Utah,  and  Mrs.  George  Hancock  in  Salt 
Lake  City. 

In  Utah  he  was  quickly  recognized  as  the  masterful  man 
that  he  was.  He  became  g-reatly  attached  to  the  state,  espe- 
cially to  his  mountain  home  in  Park  City.  Only  one  thing- 
disturbed  him.  He  reached  Utah  just  when  the  clashing  be- 
tween the  government  and  the  Latter-day  Saints  was  approach- 
ing a  climax. 

The  colonel,  a  trained  soldier,  an  American  to  whom  his 
country  was  all  in  all,  could  hardly  contain  himself  in  the  situ- 
ation that  existed.  When  discussing  it.  he  would  sometimes 
spring  from  his  chair,  and  pace  the  floor,  and  his  walk  was  that 
of  a  tiger  in  captivity. 

But  he  went  about  doing  good  and  trusting  in  God.  He 
with  his  brother  carried  on  a  most  complicated  mining  business 
which  finally,  four  or  five  years  prior  to  his  death,  culminated 
in  a  competency  for  him. 

His  home  life  was  something  beautiful  to  see.  Some 
three  or  four  years  prior  to  his  death  his  eyes  failed  him,  and 
he  became  almost  totally  blind.  Then  his  loved  ones  became 
eyes  to  him.  All  that  devotion  and  loving  solicitude  could 
do  was  done  for  him.  In  the  family  devotions,  he  loved  to 
lead,  with  his  fine  tenor  voice,  in  the  singing,  and  his  family 
learned  to  guess  his  mood  by  the  character  of  the  hymns  he 
sang. 

He  had  long  been  feeble  in  health.  His  faltering  heart 
was  his  notice  that  his  end  was  near. 

In  the  winter  of  1905  he  was  seized  with  an  attack  of 
grippe,  and  on  the  3rd  of  January,  he  sank  into  a  quiet  sleep 
and  awoke  beyond  the  stars. 

After  impressive  services  at  his  home  in  Park  City,  his 
body  was  taken  to  his  old  home  in  Grand  Haven,  and  after 
still  more  impressive  obsequies,  he  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  beau- 
tiful cemetery  there,  the  murmur  of  the  waters  of  Lake  ^lich- 
igan  being  a  lullaby  to  the  sleeper. 

At  his  death  the  Loyal  Legion  of  the  United  States  issued 
a  military  order  which  was  a  noble  eulogy  of  his  life  and 


COLONEL  WILLIAM  MONTAGUE  FERRY.     323 

character.  The  press  of  Utah  and  Michigan  gave  him  notices 
which  were  all  fine. 

What  he  had,  what  he  was,  he  wrought  out  for  himself. 
He  was  gentle  in  his  ways ;  he  drew  those  near  him  to  his 
heart  with  hooks  of  steel ;  his  resolute  soul  never  lost  its  perfect 
poise ;  he  was  sure  that  a  clear  brain  and  a  healthy  body  were 
sufficient  capital  for  anyone.  With  these  he  began  his  battle 
for  a  place  among  men,  and  won  it ;  won  it,  too,  in  a  way  that 
carried  no  self-reproaches.  Every  day  of  his  life  he  was 
ready,  if  called  upon,  to  make  a  full  accounting. 

When  the  war  came,  he  hurried  to  the  front.  He  re- 
mained there  until  the  lips  of  the  last  cannon  grew  still.  He 
was  in  the  forefront  of  that  wonderful  array  of  officers  who 
were  the  executives  of  those  greater  soldiers.  Grant,  Sherman, 
Thomas,  McPherson  and  Rosecrans. 

The  war  did  not  change  in  the  least  the  man,  save  to  in- 
tensify his  high  character.  He  became  as  eminent  in  peace  as 
he  was  in  war. 

He  was  a  Christian  gentleman.  In  the  world  he  never 
feared  aught  except  his  God  and  the  possibility  of  doing 
wrong. 

He  walked  high-souled  and  self-respectful  through  life. 
He  believed  in  the  omnipotence  of  labor  and  worked  until  his 
eyes  failed  him.  As  his  sight  grew  more  and  more  dim,  the 
vision  of  the  greater  light  of  the  beyond  grew  brighter  and 
brighter  around  him,  and  while  the  new  year's  greetings 
were  ringing  joyously,  the  light  suddenly  went  out,  and  he 
passed  to  the  everlasting  day. 

When  around  his  own  fireside,  the  colonel  would  some- 
times, in  a  reminiscent  mood,  tell  old  war-time  anecdotes.  Two 
or  three  are  given  below. 

"A  bunch  of  us  officers  were  once  during  the  war  invited 
to  dinner  at  a  private  southern  home.  After  dinner,  to  enter- 
tain us,  the  ladies  of  the  house  sang  several  songs  with  piano 
accompaniment.  Finally  "Maryland,  My  Maryland"  was  sung, 
and  then  a  discussion  arose  about  the  origin  of  the  tune,  the 
ladies  and  some  of  the  gentlemen  claiming  that  the  tune,  like 
the  words,  were  Southern.     The  colonel  said  they  were  mis- 


324  AS  I  REME.MBER  THEM. 

taken  about  the  tune,  that  it  was  an  old  hymn.  When  this  was 
contested,  the  colonel  said :  'But  I  will  prove  it,'  and  nodding 
to  one  of  the  officers,  said,  'Lieutenant,  play  me  the  accom- 
paniment :'  then,  in  his  superb  tenor  voice  he  sang  the  hymn 
through,  which  shut  off  further  debate." 

At  one  time  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee  was  encamped 
for  a  good  while  on  both  banks  of  the  Tennessee  River.  It 
was  the  habit  of  the  bands  of  several  regiments  on  Sundays 
to  play  jolly  music  of  every  kind.  This  was  a  great  distress 
to  the  chaplains,  and  to  all  the  religious  men  in  the  army.  It 
was  most  offensive  to  Colonel  Ferry,  and  he  went  through  the 
army  making  personal  appeals  to  the  band  masters.  The  next 
Sabbath  morning's  dawn  was  most  beautiful.  The  sky  was 
sapphire  and  a  great  hush  was  on  the  air.  While  many  of  the 
soldiers  were  still  asleep  the  clear  notes  of  a  bugle  rang  out  on 
the  still  summer  air,  a  full  regimental  band  playing  softly  an 
accompaniment.  The  air  played  was.  "Praise  God  from  whom 
all  blessings  flow." 

As  the  music  ceased  there  was  a  moment  of  absolute 
silence ;  then  the  band  of  another  regiment  with  more  power 
took  up  and  repeated  the  anthem. 

Soldiers  came  out  of  the  tents  to  listen.  Very  soon  both 
banks  of  the  river  were  lined  with  listening  men :  as  one  band 
after  another  joined  in  the  solemn  but  triumphal  hymn. 

The  W'aters  of  the  river  seemed  to  be  bearing  along  the 
sacred  melody;  then  human  voices  joined;  then  regiment  after 
regiment  took  up  the  strain,  and  soon  every  division  of  the 
superb  army,  as  with  one  acclaim,  was  singing.  From  that  day 
until  the  encampment  was  broken  up,  only  sacred  music  was 
played  on  Sunday. 

The  colonel  went  to  Central  and  South  America  in 
1888-89. 

Bishop  Scanlan  of  Salt  Lake  tendered  him  letters  of 
introduction,  which  generally  had  the  effect  of  a  safe  conduct 
for  him  and  his  party.  One  Padre  to  whom  one  of  his  let- 
ters was  presented,  read  it  and  then  said :  'T  see  you  are 
not  of  our  faith,  but  I  know  of  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
serve  vou.     We  are  all  traveling  toward  the  same  countrv." 


COLONEL  WILLIAM  MONTAGUE  FERRY.     325 

Generally  the  utmost  kindness  was  extended,,  but  when 
they  reached  the  port  of  Pacasmazo,  an  officer  stopped  them 
and  took  them  before  an  alcalde.  The  colonel  and  his  party 
were  in  a  hurry,  and  the  colonel  looked  over  the  alcalde,  went 
near  him  and  in  a  low  voice  said,  "We  are  in  a  hurry,  and  I 
have  one  hundred  good  reasons  to  show  you  why  we  should 
not  be  detained." 

"In  that  case,"  said  the  doughty  magistrate,  "it  would  be 
better  to  come  with  me  to  my  private  office."  The  colonel  went 
and  soon  came  out  with  a  flowery  passport  to  travel  anywhere 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court.  I  asked  one  of  the  com- 
pany what  the  reasons  were,  and  he  gave  me  to  understand 
they  were  Peruvian  silver  dollars. 

The  same  member  of  the  company — a  Utah-born  boy — 
told  me  that  when  their  little  coast  steamer  entered  the  port  of 
Paita  it  was  just  about  sundown.  The  whole  company  had 
g'rown  weary  of  the  Spanish  "jabber,"  none  of  them  had  seen 
an  American  for  months,  but  there,  right  before  them,  lay  the 
Trenton — which  went  to  pieces  on  the  rocks  under  the  beatings 
of  the  hurricane  in  Samoa  harbor,  the  band  playing  as  the  ship 
was  sinking.  The  Trenton  was  a  beautiful  four-masted  frigate, 
and  she  was  rising  and  falling  on  the  swell  as  gracefully  as  a 
swan.  The  marines  had  been  drilling,  the  yards  were  alive 
with  men,  the  sun  was  aflame  over  the  flag,  and  the  band  was 
playing  a  national  air.  With  full  heart  I  was  watching  the 
scene,  when  Col.  Ferry  came  on  deck  from  below  and  caught 
sight  of  the  pageant.  Off  came  his  white  hat.  For  five  minutes 
he  waved  it,  shouting  like  a  Comanche,  jumping  up  and  down, 
and  tears  coursing  down  his  face. 

If,  where  the  soul  of  the  colonel  has  gone,  the  standard  is 
not  the  Stars  and  Stripes  that  soul  will  join  the  progressives 
and  demand  a  new  deal. 


COLONEL  WILBUR  F.  SANDERS. 

A  MASTERFUL  man  was  Colonel  Sanders  of  Montana, 
and  perhaps  for  forty  years  did  more  to  shape  events  in 
that  state  than  any  other  one  man.  When  he  reacherl 
there  in  the  early  sixties  the  region  was  almost  without  law, 
and  desperate  men  were  in  control. 

Colonel  Sanders  took  his  life  in  his  hand  and  went  about 
to  subdue  the  lawless  and  to  establish  order.  The  decent  peo- 
ple rallied  to  his  support  and  the  transformation  was  made.  To 
do  this  it  was  necessary  that  a  few  of  the  worst  of  the  ruffians 
should  be  hanged,  and  that  duty  was  cheerfully  performed. 
The  transformation  being  made,  the  work  of  putting  the  re- 
gion in  order  for  the  coming  of  full  enlightenment  was  begun, 
and  there  has  never  been  any  break  in  its  upward  way  since, 
except  for  a  brief  time  when  ambitious  men  were  fighting  for 
place  by  methods  which  were  calculated  to  demoralize,  rather 
than  uplift  the  people. 

Through  the  forty  or  more  years  of  Colonel  Sanders'  life 
there,  no  one  ever  doubted  his  power  or  discounted  his  influ- 
ence. If  he  did  not  have  all  the  honors  that  were  his  due,  no 
one  was  to  blame  but  himself.  His  soul  was  as  imperious  as 
ever  was  Caesar's,  and  his  tongue  was  perpetually  firing 
poisoned  arrows.  He  was  tall  and  large  and  swarthy,  and 
when  excited  his  eyes  were  flames  and  like  Job's  war  horse,  his 
"neck  was  clothed  with  thunder." 

Nevertheless  he  was  a  most  genial  man,  and  while  as 
proud  as  Lucifer,  he  had  not  a  trace  of  false  pride.  A  finished 
scholar  and  fine  lawyer  and  with  talents  that  made  him  well- 
nigh  invincible,  down  deep  his  thought  was  that  the  highest 
call  in  this  world  was  that  of  duty,  and  that  no  man  was  so 
poor  or  unfortunate  that  he  was  not  entitled  to  justice. 

He  was  not  always  right,  but  he  always  meant  to  be 
right.  There  was  no  compromise  with  him.  Everything  must 
be  either  right  or  it  was  all  wrong,  and  when  aught  trenched 
upon  the  right,  with  him  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  but 


COLONEL  WILBUR  F.  SANDERS.  327 

crush  the  wrong.  As  all  men  cannot  see  alike,  this  disposition 
on  his  part  made  him  enemies,  but  they  all  admitted  that  he 
was  a  fair  fighter.  He  was  passionately  fond  of  Montana. 
He  felt  that  the  character  of  the  magnificent  state  was  in  part 
his  work,  and  he  was  as  jealous  of  the  state's  reputation  as  of 
his  own.  He  wanted  every  man  within  its  borders  to  be 
brave  and  every  woman  fair. 

He  was  a  wonderful  speaker  on  the  hustings,  and  there 
his  fashion  was  to  discomfit  his  opponents  with  an  irony  at 
which  no  offense  could  be  taken,  but  which  convulsed  his  hear- 
ers and  annihilated  opponents. 

He  was  as  loyal  to  his  country  as  to  his  state,  as  jealous 
of  its  honor,  and  its  flag  was  to  him  the  symbol  of  absolute 
justice,  truth  and  enlightened  liberty. 

When  Montana  entered  the  Union  he  was  one  of  its  first 
United  States  Senators,  and  served  with  great  benefit  to  his 
state,  with  great  honor  to  himself.  The  east  is  prone  to  look 
askance  at  senators  from  new  states.  In  their  eastern  prov- 
incialism they  assume  as  a  matter  of  course  that  much  that  is 
crude  and  not  quite  refined  must  be  expected  from  such 
sources.  One  glance  at  Wilbur  F.  Sanders  was  enough  to  un- 
deceive such  people.  He  looked  as  high-born  as  a  king,  and 
when  he  opened  his  mouth  the  shrewdest  of  them  all  sat  up  and 
took  notice. 

A  fatal  malady  kept  him  at  home  for  several  years  prior 
to  his  death,  but  he  never  for  a  moment  lost  interest  in  all 
public  matters  and  he  worked  at  his  profession  to  the  very  end. 
Estimating  men  we  often  compare  one  with  some  other  man  of 
national  reputation.  That  cannot  be  done  in  Colonel  Sanders' 
case.  In  his  bearing  he  was  what  Roscoe  Conkling  might  have 
been  had  he  when  a  youth  pushed  out  on  the  frontier  for 
half  a  dozen  years.  But  I  never  knew  any  western  man  that 
much  resembled  him.  His  was  a  type  of  manhood  most  rare. 
I  believe  that  what  he  coveted  most  in  the  world  was  the  love 
of  his  fellow-men,  but  not  many  could  discern  this  unless 
brought  close  to  him.  He  would  stoop  to  help  up  a  poor  man 
who  had  fallen,  but  he  would  not  have  doffed  his  hat  to  Julius 
Caesar  unless  Csesar  had  set  him  the  example.     His  home  was 


328  AS  I  RE^IEMBER  THEM. 

a  most  happy  one;  his  jyrandchildren  could  work  him  in  every 
way  they  pleased,  and  his  last  word  was  one  of  endearment  to 
his  wife. 

Could  he  have  been  sfiven  his  health  ten  years  longer,  his 
name  would  have  been  as  familiar  in  the  nation  as  it  was  and  is 
in  Montana;  but  his  call  came  just  when  the  fruition  of  his 
hopes  seemed  to  be  taking  form  in  a  setting  of  glory  before 
him,  and  without  a  murmur  he  accepted  his  fate.  On  the  day 
of  his  funeral,  a  Montana  paper  said: 

Men  of  Montana !     Bare  your  brows  today. 
Stand  at  salute  before  the  open  grave 

That  waits  to  gather  to  its  arms  the  clay 
Of  him  who  was  the  bravest  of  your  brave. 

He  was  the  most  potential  figure  among  the  strong  men  of 
his  state.  For  years  he  was  looked  up  to  by  a  majority  of 
them  as  their  uncrowned  sovereign,  and  the  saddest  act  of 
their  lives  was  to  smooth  his  final  couch,  and- to  repeat  above 
him  their  all  hails  and  farewells. 


JOHN  0.  PACKARD. 

WHEN  I  knew  him  first  Mr.  Packard  was  a  merchant 
in  Marysville,  Cal.,  in  1852.  He  was  born  in  New 
York  City,  w^as  trained  and  educated  there  in  the  cir- 
cle which  later  blossomed  into  "the  Four  Hundred."  Before 
I  knew  him  personally  I  had  seen  him  and  noticed  that  he  was 
the  best  dressed  man  in  the  little  city.  His  measure  was  doubt- 
less in  New  York,  and  he  was  not  only  dressed  in  perfect  taste, 
but  in  perfect  taste  every  hour  of  the  day.  But  the  rains  fell 
and  the  floods  came,  and  on  Christmas  day  a  part  of  the 
city  was  under  water,  the  other  part  deep  in  mud. 

Still  Christmas  had  to  be  celebrated,  so  a  band  of  young 
luen — there  were  no  old  men  there — gathered  together  and 
engaged  Seymour  Pixley,  who  was  six  feet  three  in  height 
and  slim,  to  play  the  fife,  and  little  Grubb — I  cannot  recall  his 
given  name,  who  was  about  five  feet  four  in  height,  but  tall 
east  and  west,  to  play  a  bass  drum ;  the  whole  company  wore 
high  miners'  rubber  boots,  and  some  other  clothing.  They 
formed  a  procession,  the  fife  and  drum  leading,  and  marched 
from  one  saloon  to  another.  When  a  saloon  would  treat  the 
whole  bunch,  they  would  give  it  three  resounding  cheers.  When 
a  saloon  declined  to  be  generous  it  received  three  sepulchral 
groans,  and  this  continued  from  10  a.  m.  to  4  p.  m. 

And  Packard  was  the  grand  marshal  of  the  procession. 

The  next  morning  he  was  clothed  in  his  habitual  perfect 
attire,  and  was  in  his  right  mind.  Moreover  he  looked  fresh 
and  ruddy  as  a  bridegroom. 

Later  I  got  to  know  him  intimately  and  early  formed  an 
idea  that  he  was  a  man  who  went  into  confessional  with  his 
conscience  every  day,  and  balanced  his  books  by  it  every 
night.  But  he  never  stopped  to  question  his  conscience  as  to  its 
own  status ;  never  took  time  to  remember  that  the  compass 
of  a  ship  may  seem  to  be  perfectly  adjusted,  and  still  some- 
thing in  the  ship  itself  may  cause  it  to  vary,   so  when  the 

22 


330  AS  I  REAIEMBER  THEM. 

ship's  course  is  set  by  it,  all  unexpectedly  it  goes  smashing 
into  the  breakers. 

There  was  a  little  variation  of  this  kind  in  the  compass 
of  Mr.  Packard's  soul,  so  he  was  at  times  a  trifle  eccentric, 
and  had  collisions  which  were  a  surprise  to  himself. 

He  was  wonderfully  wrought  up  when  the  Coxie  army 
started  on  its  march.  He  had  never  relied  upon  anyone  save 
himself  and  could  not  comprehend  how  any  healthy  man  should 
directly  or  indirectly  beg  in  a  land  like  ours. 

For  a  long  time  he  had  been  noiselessly  contributing  to 
maintain  a  certain  church  in  Salt  Lake  City.  No  one  knew  it 
but  the  pastor  of  the  church.  As  the  army  neared  Salt  Lake, 
just  as  Packard  was  most  furious  about  it,  he  met  this  pastor 
on  the  street,  who  greeted  him  with,  "Oh,  Mr.  Packard,  what 
can  we  do  for  these  poor  men  ?    \Miere  can  they  go  ?" 

At  the  top  of  his  voice  Packard  shouted :  "Let  them  go 
t(5  h — 1 !"  And  strode  on  leaving  the  good  pastor  paralyzed 
with  astonishment. 

]\Ir.  Packard  made  a  fortune  in  Marysville  and  removed 
to  the  east. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  he  went  South  and  bought  two 
plantations,  one  in  Mississippi,  the  other  just  over  the  line  in 
Louisiana,  and  started  to  raise  cotton. 

Soon  after  his  going  there  news  came  that  the  cholera 
had  reached  America  and  was  devastating  the  eastern  cities. 
Packard  took  the  first  boat  for  New  Orleans,  consulted  an 
eminent  physician  as  to  the  most  approved  treatment  then 
known  for  cholera,  bought  a  great  chest  of  medicines,  and  with 
it  returned  home.  It  was  not  long  until  the  disease  began  its 
march  through  the  south,  and  one  afternoon  a  man  came  by 
Packard's  house  and  said  a  negro  on  a  neighboring  plantation 
had  been  stricken.  Mr.  Packard,  with  holsters  filled  with 
medicine,  mounted  a  horse  and  hurried  to  the  sick  man's  side. 
For  several  days  he  was  physician  to  all  who  were  seized  by 
the  pestilence  until  he  finally  came  down  with  it  himself.  He 
went  through  all  its  stages  until  he  lost  consciousness  in  a  col- 
lapse. He  came  to  himself  the  next  morning  and  asked  his 
foreman  what  had  been  done  to  pull  him  through.    The  honest 


JOHN  O.  PACKARD.  331 

man  replied :  "The  case  was  desperate,  Mr.  Packard,  so  I 
doubled  the  doses  on  yon." 

But  cotton  was  low,  and  the  atmosphere  of  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana  just  after  the  war  was  not  congenial  toward  north- 
ern men,  even  northern  Democrats  like  Packard.  So  Mr. 
Packard  sold  out,  or  more  correctly,  abandoned  his  home  there, 
and  started  for  California. 

But  reaching  Salt  Lake  he  was  attracted  by  the  reports  of 
the  Eureka  mine  in  Tintic  district,  and  bought  the  control  of 
it.  He  had  practically  no  knowledge  of  quartz  mining,  but 
he  had  exhaustless  pluck  and  industry;  he  made  a  great  mine 
of  his  purchase,  and  a  great  deal  of  money;  later  opened 
the  Gemini  and  made  more  until  his  fortune  mounted  up  into 
the  millions. 

He  built  the  fine  school  building  at  Eureka,  the  beautiful 
library  in  Salt  Lake  and  another  in  Marysville,  where  he  made 
his  first  fortune.  His  home  for  twenty  years  was  in  Salt  Lake. 
In  all  that  time  he  sought  no  honors  for  himself ;  comparatively 
few  people  knew  him ;  he  never  had  any  family,  but  during 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  residence  there,  with  the  beginning  of 
everv  month  more  than  one  family  received  a  check  from  him 
which  was  equal  to  the  family's  needs.  He  removed  to  Santa 
Cruz,  California,  about  1900,  and  engaged  in  business  there, 
pursuing  it  with  all  his  old-time  energy  until  at  about  eighty- 
five  years  of  age  his  summons  came.  He  was  one  of  the  very 
•strong  men  of  the  West. 


I 


COLONEL  A.  C.  ELLIS. 

BORN  in  Kentucky,  a  University  and  Law  School  grad- 
uate, he  was  district  attorney  in  St.  Louis  wdien  the 
war  came  on.  He  joined  the  Confederate  army  and 
fought  until  the  Confederate  arm  w^as  broken  in  Missouri : 
then  made  his  way  across  the  plains  and  settled  in  Carson  City. 
Almost  at  once  he  took  his  place  in  the  ranks  of  finished  law- 
yers. Later  he  was  nominated  for  governor,  but  was  defeated 
because  in  those  days  Nevada  was  strongly  Republican.  After 
practicing  his  profession  for  ten  years,  he  removed  to  San 
Francisco,  where  he  pursued  his  profession  for  ten  years  more, 
always  up  in  the  front  rank  among  lawyers.  Removing  to 
Salt  Lake  City,  for  twenty  years  he  maintained  his  place 
among  the  leaders  of  his  profession  until  his  health  failed.  He 
died  in  March,  1912. 

His  great  charm  was  the  high  manhood  that  always  was 
his.  His  great  and  varied  scholarship  and  superb  conversa- 
tional powers  with  his  ever-sanguine  temperament  made  him 
delightful  company  ever3^where.  But  for  the  war  he  would  in 
ten  years  more  have  secured  for  himself  any  desired  position 
in  Missouri.  As  it  was  he  w^as  one  of  the  thousands  of  young 
men  in  the  south  whose  hopes  were  shattered  by  the  war,  and 
whose  after  lives  w'ere  always  shadowed  by  the  thought  of 
what  might  have  been.  He  was  always  genial  and  kindly ;  he 
tried  his  utmost  to  conceal  the  scars  of  the  wounds  his  soul  had 
received ;  but  they  were  manifest  enough  to  close  observers. 

A  tree  blasted  by  a  thunderbolt  often  puts  out  new 
branches,  and  w'ith  every  spring  tries  to  hide  its  scars  under 
green  leaves ;  but  it  is  never  quite  the  same  tree,  no  matter  how 
bravely  it  meets  the  tempests;  how  uncomplainingly  it  bears 
its  ancient  wounds. 


RICHARD  MACKINTOSH. 

THE  tears  dim  my  eyes  as  I  look  back  and  remember 
Richard  Mackintosh,  as  he  was  wont  to  come  out  of 
his  house  in  the  morning  and  with  a  voice  cheery  as 
a  lark,  as  cordial  as  the  robin,  hail  the  day. 

He  lived  many  years  in  Salt  Lake  City.  Those  who 
knew  him  well  loved  him  exceedingly.  He  was  born  in  Dub- 
lin, Ireland.  His  father  was  a  distinguished  officer  in  the 
British  army,  a  captain  in  the  famous  Ninety-third  Highlanders. 
He  was  one  of  the  Mackintosh  clan,  who,  on  that  day  of  days 
at  Waterloo,  followed  the  pibrochs  through  all  the  long  hours 
until  Blucher  came  and  the  exhausted  English  army  fell  on  the 
ground  to  sleep. 

After  the  war,  every  year,  so  long-  as  W^ellington  lived, 
on  leave  of  absence  that  father  left  his  command  and  went  up  to 
a  banquet  given  by  his  grace,  the  Iron  Duke,  and  the  titles 
he  won,  the  decorations  he  wore,  are  a  glory  to  the  Mackintosh 
family  in  any  land  where  they  dwell. 

After  Waterloo  the  father  of  our  Mackintosh  w^as  sta- 
tioned in  Dublin  with  his  regiment.  There  he  fell  in  love  wdth 
a  bonny  Irish  girl  and  married  her,  and  there  Richard  Mack- 
intosh was  born,  only  a  few  steps  from  Phcenix  Park.  And 
so  in  his  nature  he  had  much  of  the  canny  Scot  of  his  father, 
much  of  the  splendor  and  joyousness  of  his  Irish  mother.  And 
as  such  we  knew  him. 

He  was  originally  intended  to  succeed  his  father  in  the 
army,  but  for  a  slight  physical  defect  he  was  not  accepted, 
and  we  do  not  believe  it  is  any  harm  to  state  what  that  defect 
was.  One  side  of  Mr.  Mackintosh  was  a  little  smaller  than  the 
other.  His  arm  was  smaller,  his  foot  was  a  little  smaller,  and 
the  law\s  of  England  in  their  crude  way  assumed  that  this  was 
a  defect,  when  in  truth  one  side  was  just  as  strong  as  the  otlier. 
and  he  was  fashioned  like  the  one-horse  shay — "every  part  as 
strong  as  the  rest." 

What  I  write  about  Mr.  Mackintosh  is  sim])ly  from  my 


334  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

own  memory,  and  if  other  people  who  knew  him  do  not  agree 
with  all  I  say,  I  will  hold  the  belief  to  my  soul  that  they  did 
not  know  him  as  well  as  I  did.  I  knew  him  only  as  a  frank, 
splendid,  high-sonled.  thorough  man.  and  thorough  American, 
and  a  friend  that  was  more  sacred  than  all  the  jewels  of  Arabia, 
all  the  professions  of  professed  friends  in  all  the  world.  He 
was  a  good  friend,  and  whenever  I  wanted  a  joyous  word,  a 
note  of  defiance  at  fate,  a  lark's  song  to  awaken  me  from  the 
cares  that  were  upon  me.  I  always  turned  instinctively  to 
Dick  Mackintosh. 

So  he  plodded  his  wa5^  A\'hen  he  lost  money  he  made  no 
plaint;  when  he  made  money  his  voice  was  all  the  higher,  his 
cheer  all  the  greater,  his  disposition  to  do  somebody  a  favor  all 
the  more  increased. 

In  the  queen's  diamond  jubilee  year  he  went  to  England 
and  attended  the  fete.  When  he  returned  he  was  telling  about 
what  he  saw  in  his  joyous,  boisterous  way.  and  especially 
about  the  fleet  that  was  anchored  off  Spithead,  when  miles  anrl 
miles  of  guns  roared  out  their  welcome  to  the  queen.  I  asked 
him  how  the  Brooklyn  looked  in  that  outfit,  because  our  gov- 
ernment had  sent  the  Brooklyn  over,  there  in  honor  of  the 
queen  to  represent  the  American  navy.  With  almost  a  shout 
he  said:  "She  was  splendid.  She  lifted  her  crest  up  among 
those  blasted  English  ships  with  the  flag  above  her  as  much  as 
to  say,  'Look  here,  Mr.  Englishman,  we  are  here  in  state.  We 
like  your  old  queen,  but  we  would  fight  just  as  quickly  as  any 
one  of  your  black  devils  down  the  line.'  " 

To  the  end  of  his  days  he  was  a  true  Britisher,  but  after 
he  had  been  a  little  while  in  America  he  would  have  fought  any 
Englishman  on  earth  if  he  had  made  a  face  at  the  American 
Flag. 

He  was  one  of  the  Comstock  boys.  He  got  to  the  Com- 
stock  when  he  was  but  little  more  than  a  boy.  He  made  the 
long  trip  around  the  Horn  and  he  had  several  fights  on  board 
ship.  The  last  one  was  in  behalf  of  a  little  girl  that  he  declared 
was  the  prettiest  girl  in  the  world,  at  the  time,  adding,  "Thar 
was  before  I  was  married." 

He  sfot  to  the  Comstock  when  it  was  a  s^reat  school  for 


RICHARD  MACKINTOSH.  335 

all  Britishers.  He  learned  how  to  deal  in  stocks  and  that  be- 
came a  habit  with  him.  He  clung  to  it  all  his  life.  He  removed 
to  Salt  Lake.  He  was  prominent  in  mining  for  many  and 
many  a  year.  He  made  good,  but  he  was  more  prominent  as 
a  citizen,  as  a  neighbor  and  a  friend  through  all  those  years, 
and  he  wound  his  heart-strings  around  the  heart-strings  of 
others  until  when  it  came  time  that  they  should  be  torn  apart, 
it  made  a  new  wound  which  never  has  been  healed  in  those 
who  remain. 

He  was  called  before  his  time — just  in  the  pride  of  his 
splendid  manhood.  His  own  home  had  been  desolated  by  the 
death  of  his  wife,  and  after  that  he  drooped  and  drooped  and 
what  of  the  old  jollity  came  back  at  intervals  was  but  a  forced 
attempt  not  to  make  his  sorrows  a  sorrow  to  others.  He 
failed  for  a  year  and  then  died,  and  when  he  passed  away  it 
was  a  solemn  joy  to  say  about  him  that  he  was  the  truest 
friend,  the  kindest-hearted,  strongest  man,  the  bravest  cham- 
pion of  what  he  thought  was  right,  the  best  neighbor,  that  any- 
one ever  knew  and  that  thought  still  remains.  All  that  was 
really  fine  in  manhood  was  his  and  if  he  lacked  aught  in  the 
manifestation  of  his  real  nature,  that  was  a  misfortune,  be- 
cause the  nearer  one  got  to  Richard  Mackintosh  the  more  they 
esteemed  and  loved  him.  He  was  a  brave  man,  of  that  stock 
of  men  who  held  it  was  nothing  to  die  for  one's  country  or  for 
one's  honor ;  that  germ  was  always  working  in  his  own  mind ; 
and  if  he  made  any  mistakes  it  was  because  for  the  moment 
he  was  deceived,  for  deep  in  his  mind  he  was  one  of  the  finest 
examples  of  absolute  loyalty  and  high  courage  of  all  the  men 
who  in  the  old  days  helped  to  make  of  Utah  a  glorified  Amer- 
ican state. 


WILLIAM  S.  GODBE. 

BORX  in  Engiancl,  he  visited  half  the  world's  ports  as  a 
youthful   sailor,   with   a  student's  eagerness  to   revive 
the  histories  and  to  study  the  modern  conditions  of  the 
people.     Returning  to  his  native  land,  he  heard  a  new  gospel 
expounded,  investigated  it  and  believed  it  was  a  new  materiali- 
zation of  what  the  Master  taught. 

He  worked  his  way  across  the  Atlantic  and  traversed  the 
continent  mostly  on  foot  to  Salt  Lake  City,  believing  that  there 
the  regeneration  of  mankind  was  to  begin. 

With  the  enthusiasm  of  an  earnest  youth  he  began  his 
work ;  intense  in  his  religion ;  intense  and  untiring  in  his  labor, 
and  w^orked  on  and  on  until  the  whole  territory  recognized  his 
masterful  abilities,  his  business  acumen  and  lovable  nature ; 
and  he  became  a  favorite  from  the  highest  chiefs  of  the  new 
creed  down  to  the  lowliest  toiler,  until  he  was  looked  to  every- 
where as  a  support,  from  the  inauguration  of  a  great  enterprise 
to  the  founding  of  a  little  frontier  church. 

But  all  the  time  he  was  studying;  all  the  time  was  astcing 
himself  which  way  Duty  led? 

Every  night  he  went  into  confessional  with  his  own  con- 
science, until  through  weighing  what  was  being  said  and  done, 
the  conviction  came  to  him  that  while  religion  implied  sincere 
service  to  God,  still  all  men  should  be  free  to  do  any  legiti- 
mate thing. 

Indeed  this  had  been  transmitted  through  the  blood  of 
his  ancestors  since  before  that  June  day  in  1215  w'hen  the 
great  charter  was  wrenched  from  a  sullen  and  vindictive  Eng- 
lish king. 

So,  when  fully  convinced,  he  declared  himself.  This 
brought  to  him  a  summons  to  show  cause  why  he  should  not  be 
excommunicated. 

He  responded ;  proclaimed  his  love  of  God  and  of  his  fel- 
low-men, and  cited  the  record  of  his  own  life  to  prove  his  sin- 


WILLIAM  S.  GODBE.  337 

cerity  and  truth,  and  defended  what  he  was  doing  as  right  in 
the  eves  of  God  and  enlightened  men. 

He  was  expelled,  but  that  did  not  change  his  high  nature. 
For  awhile  old  friends  passed  him  coldly  by,  which  grieved 
him.  but  awakened  within  him  no  vindictiveness.  Neither 
did  it  change  his  purpose. 

His  fortune  was  shattered,  and  he  was  repudiated  in 
places  where  he  had  been  so  much  esteemed.  He  turned  to  the 
solemn  mountains  for  sympathy  and  support,  and  thence  for 
thirty  years  opened  mines  and  roads ;  built  mills  and  furnaces : 
toiling  without  rest,  but  keeping  his  heart  open  to  any  cry  of 
distress ;  bearing  no  malice  toward  men ;  but  to  the  last  pro- 
claiming the  love  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man;  his 
path  lined  everywhere  with  charities  and  good  deeds,  until  he 
finally  died,  literally  in  the  harness  of  labor. 

He  was  a  man  who  believed  he  was  created  in  the  image 
of  God :  that  nothing  from  him  must  mar  that  image ;  so  he 
toiled  on,  his  soul  shining  out  more  and  more  until  when  the 
tabernacle  that  held  it  fell  away,  and  it  took  its  flight,  it  was 
reflected  back,  high  and  brave  and  true  and  white  as  a  planet's 
light. 


GENERAL  ALEXANDER  McDOWELL  McCOOK. 

HE  WAS  one  of  the  fighting  McCook  family.  His 
father  and  brothers,  six  of  them,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
died  in  the  war  from  wounds  or  disease.  His  brother 
Anson  was  shot  in  Mississippi  by  guerrillas,  while,  badly 
wounded,  he  was  being  conveyed  in  an  ambulance  across  the 
country.  General  Alex.  AlcCook  always  held  Anson  as  the 
great  man  of  the  family.  They  were  indeed  a  fighting  family. 
The  old  father,  past  seventy  years  of  age,  was  killed  in  trying 
to  repel  Morgan's  raid. 

This  special  family  were  all  Ohio  men,  and  often  in  the 
late  hours  of  a  banquet  General  Alexander  McDowell  McCook 
would  assure  his  fellow  banqueters  that  he,  personally,  was 
the  d — t  best  Presbyterian  that  ever  came  from  "Yaller" 
Creek.  He  was  a  West  Point  graduate,  and  when  the  war 
came  he  was  assigned,  a  general  of  volunteers,  to  Gen.  Don 
Carlos  Buell's  army,  commanding  his  right  wing.  As  is  well 
known,  a  part  of  General  Buell's  army  reached  the  battlefield  of 
Pittsburg  Landing  at  dusk  after  the  first  day's  tremendous 
battle.  It  was  there  that  General  Buell  said  to  General  Grant : 
"Did  you  not  take  too  big  a  risk.  General  ?  A  big  river  in  your 
rear,  an  army  of  unknown  strength  in  your  front,  and  in  case 
you  were  defeated  only  two  little  gunboats  to  carry  your  army 
across  the  river?  A\'hy  you  could  not  have  crossed  more  than 
40,000  men  on  those  boats." 

And  Grant  replied :     "They  would  have  been  ample  to- 
cross  all  that  would  have  wanted  to  cross  in  case  I  had  been 
defeated." 

The  regulars  of  Buell's  army  joined  Grant's  army  on  the 
second  day's  stubborn  battle,  which  lasted  until  4  p.  m.,  before 
Beaureguard's  army  was  finally  routed.  McCook's  corps 
reached  the  field  about  the  time  the  final  retreat  began,  and 
General  Sherman  wanted  McCook  to  pursue  the  enemy,  but 
McCook  pleaded  the  fatigue  of  his  men.  General  Sherman 
never  quiate   forgave  McCook  for  this.      Shiloh  was  a  real 


GENERAL  ALEXANDER  McDOWELL  McCOOK.  339 

punctuation  point  in  the  war.  Had  General  Albert  Sidney 
Johnston  lived  four  hours  longer,  what  might  have  been?? 

Had  Grant  who  was  after  that  battle  practically  retired, 
well-nigh  dismissed,  indeed,  never  been  restored,  what  might 
have  been  ? 

Had  the  attack  been  made  a  day  sooner,  when  Buell  was 
too  far  away  to  help,  what  might  have  been?  Surely  "God 
moves  in  a  mysterious  way  His  wonders  to  perform." 

General  McCook,  with  his  single  corps,  fought  and  won 
the  battle  of  Perryville.  General  Buell,  with  the  main  army, 
was  three  miles  away.  The  battle  began  about  1  p.  m.,  the 
object  of  the  Federals  being  to  hold  possession  of  a  stream,  of 
the  Confederates  to  gain  possession  of  it.  The  battle  lasted 
two  hours,  and  the  fighting  was  most  sanguinary,  but  not  a 
sound  of  it  was  heard  by  the  main  army  only  three  miles  away. 
A\dien  a  messenger  finally  reached  General  Buell.  he  hurried 
to  the  scene,  received  from  General  McCook's  lips  an  account 
of  what  he  had  done,  at  which  General  Buell  warmly  praised 
him  for  his  splendid  generalship. 

When  the  command  went  to  General  Rosecrans,  General 
McCook  retained  his  corps  and  took  part  in  the  furious  battle 
of  Stone  River.  At  Chickamauga  the  corps  was  rolled  back, 
as  was  the  entire  army,  except  the  corps  of  General  George 
H.  Thomas,  "the  Rock  of  Chickamauga,"  by  the  fierce  onsets 
of  Bragg's  army. 

After  Chickamauga  McCook  was  detailed  on  official  busi- 
ness in  Washington,  where  he  remained  for  more  than  a  year. 

McCook  was  in  command  five  years  at  Fort  Douglas,  in 
L^tah.  He  was  a  most  thorough  soldier,  the  most  genial  of 
men  except  when  the  authority  of  the  United  States  was 
doubted ;  then  the  soldier  was  at  the  front  in  a  moment.  And 
he  had  some  eccentricities.  It  was  the  custom  in  the  summer 
for  the  regimental  band  to  give  public  concerts  every  afternoon, 
and  it  became  a  habit  for  people  of  the  city  to  drive  up  to  the 
post  to  listen  to  the  music.  Some  distinguished  ladies  and 
gentlemen  from  the  East  were  present  one  afternoon,  and  were 
presented  to  the  general.  One  of  the  ladies  praised  the  perform- 
ance of  the  band  warmly  and  expressed  the  hope  that  it  would 


340  AS  I   REMEAIBER  THEAI. 

play  a  certain  piece  of  music  which  she  named.  The  general 
at  once  sent  word  to  the  band-master  to  play  the  piece.  He  hft 
his  place,  went  to  where  the  general  was  and  explained  that> 
the  music  desired  was  unusual  and  difficult  of  performance, 
and  further  that  he  had  no  copies  of  the  music.  The  general 
ordered  him  to  the  guard-house  for  not  having  the  music, 
but  finally  rescinded  the  order  upon  the  lady's  earnest  solicita- 
tion in  behalf  of  the  unfortunate  musician. 

The  general  was  wont  to  give  receptions  at  the  post,  and 
many  a  Salt  Laker  remembers  those  receptions  with  much 
pleasure.  The  general  and  his  officers,  always  in  full  uniform, 
received  the  guests  wdio  were  royally  entertained.  McCook's 
punches  still  have  a  local  reputation  and  name  in  Salt  Lake 
City. 

His  domestic  affections  absorbed  his  life.  His  first  wife 
died  soon  after  he  reached  Salt  Lake.  The  foremost  ladies  of 
the  city  gathered  at  the  hotel  where  she  died  and  tendered 
their  services,  but  he  put  them  all  gently  aside,  and  would  not 
permit  one  of  them  to  even  see  his  w^ife's  dead  face  until  he, 
unaided,  had  prepared  and  dressed  her  body  for  the  grave. 

Before  he  left  Utah  he  married  a  second  wife,  a  most 
brilliant  and  accomplished  lady.  He  was  ordered  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  Department  of  the  Platte,  with  headquarters  at 
Denver,  Colorado,  and  remained  there  until  retired  through  the 
age  limit. 

While  stationed  in  Denver  a  Salt  Lake  friend  went  there 
to  attend  a  three  or  four  days'  convention.  He  reached  there 
after  nightfall,  and  stopped  at  a  hotel.  The  next  morning  as  he 
W'Cnt  down  to  the  office,  the  General,  with  an  orderly,  was  in 
waiting.  After  the  greetings  were  over  he  asked  for  the  key 
to  the  friend's  room,  which  he  had  in  his  hand :  took  it,  looked 
at  the  number,  and  extending  the  key  to  the  orderly  said : 

"Go  to  parlor ,  get  all  the  baggage  that  there  is  and  any 

other  little  thing  that  you  see,  and  take  it  to  my  rooms." 

Then  turning  to  the  friend,  he  said :  "I  want  you :  come 
along." 

They  drove  to  the  hotel  where  he  was  living,  went  straight 
to  the  elevator  and  up  to  his  rooms.     Opening  the  door  he 


GENERAL  ALEXANDER  McDOWELL  McCOOK.  341 

shoved  the  friend  in  and  said :  "My  wife  is  back  in  Wisconsin 
visiting-  her  mother.  You  shall  have  her  bed.  It  is  the  finest 
bed  in  Denver,  and  now  come  here."  He  led  the  friend  to 
a  desk  and  opening  it,  said :  "There  are  half  a  dozen  boxes  of 
the  finest  brands  of  cigars  this  side  of  Havana.  And  now 
con-ie  here  until  I  show  you  the  "Fodder  Stack."  And  open- 
ing a  cabinet  he  displayed  some  ominous-looking  bottles  of 
various  colors.  "Now,"  said  he.  "  I  am  going  to  watch  you; 
and  if  you  spend  a  cent  while  in  Denver,  I  will  have  you  court- 
martialed." 

Every  morning  he  would  prepare  the  bath,  and  then,  as 
though  talking  to  a  reluctant  boy,  would  say : 

"Come.  No  growling  this  morning.  Jump  up  and  have 
your  bath.  You  have  no  idea  how  much  better  you  will  feel  to 
have  a  hot  bath  and  a  cold  shower.  This  cold  water  comes 
right  out  of  the  snow,  and  you  will  see  it  will  feel  just  as  ice 
cream  tastes." 

When  the  Spanish  war  came  he  grieved  exceedingly,  and 
said : 

"I  am  retired  for  age,  and  that  is  right,  but  I  was  never 
better  physically  or  mentally,  and  I  do  know^  better  than  some 
younger  men  how  to  take  care  of  soldiers  in  camp  and  field." 

A  little  later  he  was  in  Ohio  visiting  friends,  when  he  was 
seized  with  apoplexy,  and  in  a  few  hours  his  soul  went  to 
join  his  old  comrades  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland,  the 
Army  of  the  Tennessee — all  the  royal  souls  that  when  the  life 
of  the  nation  w^as  at  stake  interposed  their  breasts  between  their 
countrv  and  their  countrv's  foes. 


E.  H.  HARRIMAN. 

MV  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Harriman  was  limited  to  a 
few  meetings  in  social  gatherings  where  little  save 
polite  nothings  were  spoken.  Hence  there  is  nothing 
before  me  save  his  personal  appearance  and  the  impression  his 
work  made. 

He  was  small  of  stature  with  a  kindly  but  shrewd  face; 
but  as  one  looked  at  him  and  heard  him  greeting  the  people 
around  him,  he  carried  the  impression  that  even  in  that  moment 
grades  and  curves  and  other  difficulties  were  being  overcome 
in  his  mind  and  possibly  purposes  were  taking  form. 

A\  ith  him  such  meetings  were  put  down  merely  as  a  gen- 
eral might  receive  a  flag  of  truce — -they  had  no  bearing  upon 
the  plans  of  his  campaign. 

He  had  many  of  the  elements  of  a  great  soldier.  He 
knew  when  to  mass  his  forces  around  a  base;  he  knew  when 
to  break  away  from  his  base,  divide  his  command ;  how  to 
make  rapid  marches  and  when  to  concentrate  at  a  given  point, 
which  necessarily  included  a  knowledge  of  what  was  opposing 
him  and  how,  if  at  all,  it  would  seek  to  intercept  his  march. 

To  me  his  face  showed  a  fixity  of  purpose  which,  when 
reached,  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  turn  aside,  and  a 
silent  patience  which  would  hold  a  post  until  the  garrison 
starved. 

But  he  kept  masked  that  other  something  which  may  be 
termed  a  subtle  sagacity  which  must  have  been  lighted  by  an 
artist's  imagination,  which  enabled  him  to  see  instantly  that  a 
transformation  was  due  and  then  in  his  mind  picture  what  that 
transformation  would  bring. 

The  old  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company  always  treated 
the  region  between  Reno  and  Ogden  as  worthless,  and  the 
road  across  it  merely  as  a  bridge,  over  which  the  through 
business  was  to  pass,  the  freights  and  fares  on  which  must  not 
only  cover  the  cost  and  profits,  but  in  addition  must  meet  the 
expenses  of  operating  the  whole  line. 


E.  H.  HARRIMAN.  343 

Then,  too,  its  object  seemed  to  be  to  subordinate  all  busi- 
ness to  the  building  up  of  San  Francisco. 

The  Union  Pacific  Company  seemed  impressed  by  a  like 
idea  except,  with  it,  the  thought  apparently  was  to  minister 
to  Omaha.  Neither  company  ever  realized  the  wealth  of 
the  empire  it  possessed,  and  neither  ever  handled  its  road 
as  a  common  carrier. 

The  result  was  that  when  the  bonds  finally  fell  due  they 
gave  up  their  property,  which  they  had  permitted  to  depreciate 
in  value  until  it  consisted  of  litt'e  more  than  a  streak  of  rusty 
steel  and  a  right-of-way. 

Then  Mr.  Harriman  appeared  upon  the  scene.  He  seemed 
to  take  in  at  a  glance  the  resources  along  the  route  of  roads, 
seemed  to  hear  "the  first  low  wash  of  waves  where  soon  would 
roll  a  human  sea ;"  seemed  to  note  what  was  being  done  in  the 
mines,  and  what  mines,  especially  base  metal  mines,  were  to 
transportation  companies  who  had  their  patronage ;  to  see  the 
wonders  wrought  when  the  desert  was  touched  with  moisture. 

He  rightly  estimated  that  the  great  Central  route  ter- 
minating on  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco  must  always  be  of  vast 
concernment  to  the  world;  just  as  readily  and  swiftly  he  rea- 
soned that  the  road  to  be  efi^ective  must  be  placed  in  as  perfect 
a  condition  as  possible;  that  unnecessary  grades  and  curves 
must  be  eliminated,  knowing  that  speed  and  safety  must  always 
be  chief  factors  in  operating  railroads. 

It  may  be  said  that  any  business  man  would  have  reasoned 
the  same  way,  yet  some  very  shrewd  men  on  both  ends  of  the 
line  had  possessed  the  road  for  thirty  years  and  had  not  rea- 
soned that  way,  but  apparently  had  thought  that  the  true  theory 
was  to  exact  everything  possible  from  the  road  and  its  patrons 
and  to  do  as  little  as  possible  for  tlie  road. 

That  Mr.  Harriman  reached  his  conclusions  quickly  was 
clear  enough  by  what  he  did,  but  that  his  conclusions,  once 
formed,  were  fixed  with  him  was  made  evident  some  years  later 
when,  in  a  trial  in  court,  the  fact  was  brought  out  that  on  his 
first  coming  West  he  began  to  purchase  and  put  away  the  stock 
of  the  roads,  sure  that  after  awhile  they  would  advance  in  value. 
We  think  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  a  ])arallel  to  his  work 


344  AS  I  RE^IEMBER  THEAI. 

in  recreating  the  old  Central  and  Union  Pacific  and  the  Oregon 
Short  Line  roads. 

What  Mr.  Harrinian  did  for  the  roads  along  their 
entire  length  resulted  in  making  certain  for  all  time  that  San 
Francisco  was  to  be  the  foremost  city  on  the  west  coast  of  the 
United  States.  The  old  companies  worked  for  a  special  objec:. 
Mr.  Harriman  for  an  absolute  result. 

As  he  did  not  fail  to  grasp  the  wealth  of  the  desert,  neither 
did  he  fail  to  realize  what  California  would  be  when  eastern 
methods  were  adopted  on  her  lands.  An  empire  as  great  in 
area  as  all  New  England,  New  York  and  New  Jersey  com- 
bined, with  soft  climate  and  marvelous  soil,  up  to  his  day  pen- 
etrated by  only  two  railroads,  and  defended  by  a  mighty  ram- 
part of  mountains. 

He  noted  that  the  east  was  occupied :  that  in  addition  to 
the  natural  increase  of  the  people,  half  a  million  foreigners 
were  pouring  into  the  country  annually,  and  that  they  must 
have  employment ;  that  failing  to  find  it  east,  they  must  go  west. 
So  he  improved  his  roads  and  built  additions  and  with  serene 
trust  that  in  the  end  both  his  judgment  would  be  vindicated, 
and  the  money  expended  would  be  returned.  His  methods  of 
overcoming  physical  obstructions  were  seen  in  the  building  of 
the  Lucin  Cutoff  and  the  driving  back  of  the  Colorado  within 
her  banks. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  construction  of  the  Panama  canal. 
when  the  difficulties  of  the  undertaking  were  being  much  dis- 
cussed, the  magnitude  of  the  work  was  referred  to  in  Mr. 
Harriman's  presence,  when  he  said :  "If  such  an  obstruction 
should  come  in  the  path  of  a  well-organized  railroad  company, 
there  would  be  no  noise  made  about  it ;  the  company  would 
just  go  to  work  and  overcome  it." 

His  ability  to  command  needed  funds  to  carry  on  his  work 
is  a  theme  for  financiers  to  discuss.  The  public  only  saw  that 
when  they  were  needed  they  were  forthcoming,  and  that  all 
his  promises  were  made  good.  He  was  a  general  in  marshal- 
ing both  his  forces  and  his  finances:  he  was  a  statesman  in 
foreseeing  the  effects  that  would  follow  certain  causes,  and 


E.  H.  HARRIMAN.  345 

there  was  a  poet's  rhythm  in  the  harmony  of  his  work  from 
inception  to  conclusion. 

He  had,  too,  the  faculty  of  drawing  men  to  him.  All  his 
lieutenants  were  devoted  to  him. 

He  sprang  into  the  arena  pitted  against  financial  gladiators 
and  industrial  kings ;  he  was  unknown  to  the  financial  world ; 
in  a  few  brief  years  his  summons  came  to  give  up  his  work, 
but  in  those  few  years  he  accomplished  more  than  any  other 
man  ever  did  along  the  same  lines  in  a  period  so  brief. 

Contemplating  his  work  one  wonders  what  would  have 
been  could  he  have  retained  his  strength  for  another  decade. 
What  he  really  accomplished  was  but  preliminary  work.  Who 
can  estimate  what  achievement  he  held  in  contemplation  ? 

His  name  will  outlive  all  the  friction  of  the  future.  It 
still  clings  to  the  roads  he  manipulated ;  they  continue  to  be 
"The  Harriman"  roads;  indeed  his  name  was  one  to  conjure 
by  and  his  work  seemed  to  be  ever  smiled  upon  by  that  angel 
called  Success. 


HON.  O.  J.  SALISBURY. 

MR.  SALISBURY  was  born  and  educated  on  the  shore 
of  Lake  Erie  in  New  York,  a  few  miles  from  Buffalo. 
He  was  early  tossed  on  the  frontier,  and  was  first 
known  in  the  west  as  a  contractor  on  the  Union  Pacific  road 
when  that  r^ad  was  under  construction. 

When  the  Star  Route  Stage  company  was  organized  by 
his  brother  Monroe  and  J.  T.  Gilmer,  he  was  the  office  partner 
and  had  the  direction  of  the  details  of  the  company.  It  was 
he  who  had  to  see  that  the  stages  ran  on  time,  that  the  stock 
had  to  be  at  the  right  place  at  the  right  moment,  that  the  horses 
were  fed  and  the  drivers  fed  and  paid.  This  he  had  the  adminis- 
trative ability  to  perform  apparently  without  effort,  though  he 
was  carrying  in  his  mind  day  and  night  the  whole  machinery 
of  the  business,  which  was  extended  over  half  a  dozen  states. 
His  work  was  that  of  a  commander  who  handles  the  details  of 
half  a  dozen  armies,  and  on  him  rested  the  responsibility  of 
making  no  mistakes. 

He  was  stationed  for  a  time  at  Deadwood ;  there  with 
clear  judgment  he  secured  mining  interests  which  are  still  pay- 
ing steady  dividends ;  and  when  the  staging  was  crowded  out 
by  the  encroaching  locomotive,  he  went  to  Bayhorse,  Idaho, 
securing  the  great  mine  there.  Without  much  previous  knowl- 
edge in  the  reduction  of  rebellious  ores,  he  built  smelters  and  in 
two  years  made  another  fortune. 

AMiat  that  means  no  one  who  has  not  been  through  a 
Hke  ordeal  and  won  out  knows. 

The  vigilance  required,  the  details  to  be  anticipated  and 
provided  for ;  the  ground  to  be  studied  and  its  faults  met ;  the 
reserve  strength  needed  to  work  when  other  tired  men  are 
asleep ;  the  patience  and  the  nerve  to  wear  a  smiling  face  before 
employees  when  the  burden  reaches  almost  to  the  breaking- 
point;  to  meet  and  oust  all  the  guards  which  nature  has  sta- 
tioned to  conceal  and  hold  her  treasures,  until  the  very  moun- 
tains are  melted  into  obedience  and  the  stars  above  smile  ap- 


HON.  O.  J.  SALISBURY.  347 

proval ;  then  to  find  and  conquer  the  rebellious  elements  which 
are  hidden  in  the  ores ;  to  do  these  things  when  a  hundred  miles 
from  any  transportation  save  the  crudest,  and  to  do  them  in  a 
way  that  will  leave  a  profit,  are  problems  that  a  thousand  men 
have  failed  to  solve  to  every  one  man  who  has  succeeded. 

Mr.  Salisbury  had  the  business  training  to  meet  this,  but 
the  more  difficult  part  he  was  obliged  to  learn  while  the  work 
and  its  inexorable  demands  were  in  progress.  He  succeeded  ;and 
while  it  was  going  on  an  insidious  disease  was  preying  upon  his 
vitality  in  a  form  which  the  physicians  could  not  arrest,  and 
which  in  a  few  months  would  have  killed  him,  except  that  the 
accidental  coming  of  a  great  specialist  from  abroad  and 
who  was  taken  to  see  Mr.  Salisbury  by  his  local  physician, 
saved  his  life.  This  specialist,  after  a  long  practice  in  a  great 
foreign  city  had  never  seen  but  one  similar  case.  The  resolu- 
tion which  under  such  a  weight  bore  up  Mr.  Salisbury  until  he 
made  the  great  business  a  success,  showed  the  nerve  that  car- 
ried on  that  fight. 

He  bought  a  home  in  Salt  Lake  City  in  the  eighties  and 
lived  all  the  rest  of  his  life  there.  He  was  active  in  pohtics 
from  the  first ;  he  did  more  to  build  up  his  party  than  perhaps 
anv  other  man.  He  was  long  national  committeeman  and  as 
such  perfected  the  organization  of  his  party,  and  by  the  will 
of  his  party  would  have  been  elected  L'nited  States  senator, 
had  not  a  fatal  illness  come  upon  him. 

In  private  life  he  was  a  quiet  but  most  genial  gentleman ; 
in  his  home  a  most  devoted  husband  and  father  and  as  winsome 
a  host  as  ever  received  a  friend  under  his  roof. 

He  had  great  plans  for  Utah  when  his  honorable  ambition 
should  be  gratified,  but  it  was  not  to  be. 

His  summons  came  too  early,  and  the  great  grief  is  that 
when  his  friends  sorrowingly  laid  him  at  rest,  not  one  in  a 
liundred  of  them  had  any  comprehension  of  how  strong  and 
true  and  high-souled  was  the  man  they  were  saying  their 
farewells  to. 


HON.  GEORGE  W.  CASSIDY. 

A  GREAT  George  was  he.  In  the  late  fifties  he  ap- 
peared in  Dutch  Flat,  California,  fresh  from  Missouri, 
then  little  more  than  a  boy.  But  like  the  others  from 
his  state,  he  wanted  to  be  shown.  He  became  a  reporter  on 
a  little  newspaper  there,  and  soon  made  a  name.  He  was  an 
inspiration  to  the  people  there  to  raise  the  funds  to  enable  T.  P. 
Judah  to  make  his  preliminary  surveys  for  a  railroad  over  the 
Sierras. 

He  drifted  early  to  Nevada  and  found  a  broader  field  for 
his  local  pen.  Shorthand  writing  was  not  known  then  in  news- 
paper work,  but  Cassidy  was  a  wonder  as  a  reporter.  He 
could  sit  through  a  long  speech  and  then  write  it  up  for  next 
morning's  paper  in  better  form  than  it  was  generally  de- 
livered. He  showed  me  one  of  these  speeches  as  he  had  re- 
ported it,  remarking :  "T  believe  I  have  improved  that  old 
duffer's  speech." 

I  suggested  that  he  may  have  had  an  advantage  that  pos- 
sibly the  speaker  might  have  been  handicapped  by  conscientious 
scruples,  to  which  he  replied  that  if  that  had  any  weight  it 
would  be  hard  to  improve  any  of  my  speeches. 

He  was  chafifing  with  a  friend  one  day  when  he  cried  out : 
"Oh.  let  up.  If  you  keep  going  I  shall  lose  my  reputation." 
To  which  the  friend  responded :  "If  you  could  it  w^ould  be  the 
making  of  you."  To  this  he  said  :  "Maybe  it  would,"  sat  down 
and  laughed  until  the  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks. 

He  worked  on  the  Virginia  City  papers,  growing  intellec- 
tually constantly;  went  from  there  to  AMiite  Pine,  when  the 
Eberhearst  mine  was  found,  and  after  a  couple  of  years  estab- 
lished the  Sentinel  at  Eureka,  Nevada. 

He  was  soon  elected  to  the  legislature  and  served  with 
honor  several  terms,  growing  to  be  a  first-class  debater.  Then 
an  appreciative  constituency  sent  him  for  two  terms  to  Con- 
"•ress  and  he  held  his  own  there  and  did  much  for  his  state. 


HON.  GEORGE  W.  CASSIDY.  349 

He  was  given  the  position  of  bank  inspector,  and  served 
with  great  credit  in  the  office  for  several  years. 

While  making  a  speech  at  a  state  convention  in  Reno 
he  was  "seized  with  heart  failure  and  in  half  an  hour  was 
dead.  He  died  in  the  prime  of  life,  but  he  knew  every  man  in 
Nevada ;  he  was  a  poor  man  but  always  had  a  dollar  for  an 
impecunious  fellow  citizen  and  excused  himself  for  being 
caught  so  often  by  explaining  that  it  was  cheaper  to  give  up  a 
dollar  than  to  wait  to  hear  a  tale  of  woe,  and  then  would  add : 
■'And  maybe  the  poor  devil  really  needed  it." 

He  made  a  name  from  nothing  and  grew  intellectually 
from  the  day  he  landed  in  California  to  the  day  he  died,  and 
counted  confidently  on  the  belief  that  the  highest  was  yet  to 
come  to  him. 

He  was  a  mighty  worker,  no  one  ever  saw  him  in  bad 
humor  for  more  than  a  minute  at  a  time;  he  was  the  most  genial 
man  that  ever  looked  misfortune  in  the  face  and  laughed  it 
to  scorn ;  he  was  one  of  the  most  genial  of  nien  and  his  death 
was  too  soon  by  a  quarter  of  a  century. 


COLONEL  GEORGE  L.  SHOUP. 

ONE  of  the  manliest  of  men  was  Senator  George  L. 
Shoup.  He  was  a  natural  captain  of  industry;  a  far- 
seeing  business  man  and  a  manager  of  men.  But  he 
was  early  tossed  upon  the  frontier :  then  came  the  war  of  the 
rebellion.  He  at  once  raised  a  regiment  and  with  it  was  ap- 
pointed to  take  care  of  the  restless  white  men  and  the  untamed 
savages  of  Colorado  and  New  Mexico.  He  soon  established 
the  fact  that  he  was  of  right  the  leader  of  those  he  commanded, 
for  he  was  always  to  the  front  when  a  fight  was  on,  and  gained 
the  reputation  of  being  always  in  the  right  place  and  doing  the 
right  thing  at  the  right  time. 

\A'hen  the  war  was  over,  accounts  of  rich  gold  discoveries 
drew  him  to  Idaho.  At  that  time  Idaho  was  aknost  an  abso- 
lute wilderness. 

He  located  up  on  the  Salmon  River  and  around  him  grew 
up  Salmon  City.  There  he  lived  with  his  trading  post  and 
farm,  but  the  personality  of  the  man  asserted  itself  and  for 
all  that  region  he  may  be  said  to  have  established  public 
opinion. 

He  helped  to  frame  the  territorial  government,  was  the 
first  governor  and  always  a  directing  force  in  that  government, 
and  when  the  territory  took  on  the  dignity  of  statehood,  while 
there  were  doubts  who  would  be  the  second  senator,  there  was 
no  doubt  who  would  be  the  first,  for  George  L.  Shoup  w^as  the 
choice  of  his  party  and  those  opposed  to  him  politically  con- 
ceded his  great  worth. 

He  served  twelve  years  in  the  senate.  He  carried  his  level 
head  to  the  senate,  and  the  scholars  quickly  realized  that  his 
judgment  on  all  practical  cjuestions  was  clear  and  strong,  and 
the  manliness  of  the  man  made  him  welcome  on  both  sides  of 
the  august  chamber. 

Every  interest  of  the  west  found  him  a  guardian,  and  still 
his  patriotism  was  bound  by  neither  state  nor  section  lines;  he 


COL.  GEORGE  L.  SHOUP.  351 

wanted  every  foot  of  soil  under  the  flag  dedicated  to  freedom 
and  every  man  and  woman  and  child  happy  and  prosperous. 

He  nursed  no  animosities  as  he  clung  to  his  own  opinions, 
he  judged  his  own  heart,  and  conceded  that  every  other  man 
was  as  free  as  himself  and  had  the  same  rights. 

He  was  shrewd  in  business,  but  there  was  never  a  cry  of 
distress  that  he  did  not  at  once  respond  to;  he  was  the  most 
hospitable  of  men  and  the  magnitude  of  his  unostentatious 
charities  grew  faster  than  his  fortune. 

Never  was  there  a  more  genial  man,  and  he  had  very 
much  such  a  nature  as  lole  gives  to  Hercules,  "he  did  not 
wait  for  a  contest,  he  conquered  whether  he  stood  or  walked, 
or  sat,  or  whatever  thing  he  did,"  and  the  impression  he  gave 
was  that  "he  was  appointed  by  Almighty  God  to  stand  for  a 
fact." 

If  he  lacked  some  refinements,  still  the  solemn  mountains, 
the  irresponsive  desert,  the  hardships,  the  privations,  the  dan- 
gers, had  made  their  marks  upon  him  and  he  had  the  refine- 
ment of  a  chastened  brave  man,  which  caused  many  a  more 
cultured  man  to  realize  that  God  gave  heroic  and  generous 
attributes  to  some  natures  long  before  there  were  schools  and 
books  in  the  world,  and  such  men  find  their  places  by  natural 
selection. 

He  helped  lay  the  foundations  of  two  states.  He  helped 
to  make  Idaho  the  great  state  it  is,  to  shape  the  character 
of  her  people ;  he  long  represented  them  with  honor  in  the 
senate  of  the  United  States;  before  that  he  had  been  proved 
a  wise  and  sagacious  governor,  and  for  all  time  the  men  of 
Idaho  should  hold  his  memory  sacred,  for  he  helped  first  to 
redeem  that  soil  from  barbarism,  then  to  see  that  the  founda- 
tion of  the  state  were  rightly  laid  and  for  a  long  period  in  the 
senate  through  his  own  lofty  character  gave  distinction  to  the 
state  he  represented. 

His  grave  is  a  hallowed  spot  in  the  soil  of  the  state  he 
lielped  to  create,  and  should  be  kept  dressed  with  flowers  always 
by  a  grateful  people ;  dressed  in  flowers  and  looked  upon  as  a 
shrine. 


HARVEY  W.  SCOTT. 

HARVEY  SCOTT  was  born  in  Oregon  when  Oregon 
liad  not  emerged  from  pioneer  and  frontier  conditions. 
He  came  of  that  heroic  stock  which  in  the  early- 
forties  in  the  central  Mississippi  valley  gathered  together  a  itw 
belongings  and  wnth  ox-teams  turned  their  faces  to  the  west 
and  never  rested  until  the  awful  march  of  twenty-five  hun- 
dred miles  .was  completed.  They  found  where  rolls  the  Ore- 
gon and  planted  the  first  stakes  of  civilization  beside  the  Willa- 
mette. I  know  of  no  other  achievement  in  history  to  compare 
with  that.  The  retreat  of  Xenophon  has  been  ringing  down 
the  stairs  of  history  for  three  and  twenty  centuries,  and  it  was 
a  great  exploit,  but  his  march  was  not  so  long  as  was  that  of 
the  Oregon  pioneers ;  then  his  command  was  made  up  of  trained 
fighting  men  and  while  he  had  much  fighting  to  do,  it  all  was 
against  inferior  races  that  with  inferior  weapons  could  not 
stand  before  the  trained  veteran  Greeks,  w^hile  all  the  w-ay  food 
was  plentiful. 

But  the  Oregon  pioneers  blazed  a  trail  for  quite  two  thou- 
sand miles  of  their  journey,  and  half  of  that  was  through  a  des- 
ert, so  bare  that  it  must  have  seemed  to  them  a  region  from 
which  the  smile  of  God  had  forever  been  withdrawn. 

Harvey  Scott  was  from  birth  endowed  with  the  impres- 
sion made  upon  his  parents  in  that  march.  He  w^as  a  kindly 
man  and  could  be  most  genial,  but  left  alone  or  in  uncon- 
genial company  he  was  wont  to  lapse  into  silence  and  his  face 
took  on  what  might  be  called  a  long-distance  look,  such  as  his 
mother  might  have  worn  when  trying  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  a 
land  of  grass  and  flowers  and  trees  beyond  the  desert  that  en- 
compassed her. 

He  early  found  a  newspaper  oftice,  and  began  to  write. 
It  was  not  long  until  he  became  an  editor  and  then  for  forty 
years  he  pursued  that  work,  with  a  patience  that  was  sublime, 
with  ever-increasing  power  and  with  more  and  more  solici- 
tude for  the  glory  of  Oregon  and  the  welfare  of  her  people. 


HARVEY  W.  SCOTT.  353 

His  environments  were  narrow  at  first ;  they  were  bounded 
by  the  boundary  Hues  of  his  state ;  they  expanded  until  they 
took  in  his  country  and  the  whole  world  beyond.  He  began 
when  schools  were  scattered  and  poor  in  Oregon ;  from  the 
first  his  journal  presented  a  course  of  study  for  the  state ;  tu 
the  end  he  was  the  state's  great  schoolmaster.  Born  with  a 
thought  that  everything  must  be  either  right  or  wrong,  at 
first  some  unconscious  prejudices  took  form  under  his  hand; 
these,  as  experience  and  a  broader  vision  came  to  him,  began 
to  be  eliminated  until  his  sense  of  duty  to  his  readers,  coupled 
with  his  incorruptible  integrity,  finally  assumed  full  sway. 
Then  his  journal,  the  Orcgoiiiaii,  took  on  its  full  power  and 
did  more  to  shape  public  opinion  in  Oregon  and  to  lift  up  the 
minds  of  her  people  than  any  other  one  cause. 

His  journal  that  at  first  was  but  a  little  red  schoolhouse 
by  the  roadside  expanded  until  to  his  people  it  became  a  mighty 
school  of  enlightenment  and  patriotism,  a  daily  university 
course  in  integrity  and  wisdom. 

I  never  think  of  the  battleship  Oregon  that  I  do  not  think 
of  Harvey  Scott.  On  an  urgent  call  the  ship  rounded  a  con- 
tinent in  unparalleled  swift  time,  without  resting  took  its  place 
in  the  battle  line,  and  when  the  supreme  call  came,  rushed  in- 
vincibly into  the  very  vortex  of  that  storm  and  never  slackened 
its  speed,  never  faltered  in  power  until  the  last  opponent  was  a 
shattered  wreck. 

If  inanimate  objects  ever  take  on  character,  the  battle- 
ship drew  its  character  from  Harvey  Scott. 

Oregon  will  never  appreciate  what  it  owes  him.  That  his 
final  summons  came  while  he  was  yet  in  possession  of  all  his 
faculties  and  all  his  power,  has  been  a  grief  to  thousands,  but 
for  the  sake  of  his  memory  and  his  fame  maybe  it  was  best, 
for  surely  it  is  better  to  see  a  great  ship  go  down  in  the  hour  of 
victory  with  flags  flying  and  victorious  trumpets  calling,  than 
to  watch  it  growing  weaker  and  weaker  until,  dismantled,  it 
becomes  a  target  for  envious  guns. 


SENATOR  WOLCOTT. 

THE  stormy  life  of  Senator  Ed.  Wolcott  of  Colorado  wore 
itself  out  before  its  time.  Gifted  beyond  his  fellows, 
handsome,  winsome,  impulsive,  impetuous,  imperious, 
reckless,  undisciplined,  a  born  leader,  a  born  fighter,  subtle  as 
a  serpent,  eloquent,  high-bred  as  a  Greek  master,  implacable 
toward  enemies,  enchanting  to  friends,  magnetic,  audacious,  at 
home  with  Bacchus  when  in  the  mood,  but  ready  to  look  Thor 
full  in  the  face  and  challenge  him  to  bring  out  his  biggest 
hammer  and  try  conclusions  with  him.  A  natural  aristocrat 
by  virtue  of  his  lineage,  his  learning,  his  family's  place  in  the 
nation's  history  and  his  own  masterful  abilities,  but  still  a  gen- 
uine American  to  the  last  drop  of  his  blue  blood,  and  especially 
reverential  of  the  fact  that  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  coun- 
try and  the  direction  of  events  all  Americans  stand  on  the  same 
plane,  all  have  a  right  to  a  hearing  and  the  more  especially 
that  the  aristocracy  of  a  republic  must  rest  on  brain  and  heart 
alone. 

So.  many  sided,  followed  by  troops  of  friends,  winning- 
manifold  honors ;  always  shadowed  by  bitter  enemies,  for 
twenty  years  he  was  more  the  concernment  of  the  men  of  Col- 
orado than  any  other  man — his  comings  and  his  goings  among 
them  were  like  those  of  ]\Iercury  to  and  from  Olympus — "to 
witch  the  world." 

But  he  suffered  one  disappointment  which  half  embittered 
his  life.  President  McKinley  sent  him  as  head  of  a  commis- 
sion to  try  to  effect  an  international  agreement  to  remonetize 
silver.  France  joyfully  received  him.  An  agreement  was 
reached,  then  the  premier  of  France  accompanied  him  to  Lon- 
don. Then  Bond  street  and  Wall  street  raised  a  protest  and 
just  at  the  crisis,  Lyman  Gage,  then  secretary  of  the  treasury, 
cabled  to  London  that  the  Lniited  States  did  not  want  remon- 
etization.  That  betrayal  destroyed  all  chances  to  succeed,  and 
ever  after  as  Senator  Wolcott  thought  what  his  success  then 
would  have  been  to  Colorado,  to  the  United  States,  to  the 


SENATOR  WOLCOTT.  355 

world  and  to  his  own  fame,  he  was  outraged  and  comfortless. 

He  is  still  passionately  mourned  in  that  state  by  those  who 
loved  him;  even  his  enemies  feel  as  did  Earl  Douglas  when  his 
passions  cooled,  and  he  said :  "Bold  can  he  speak  and  fairlv 
ride." 

He  died  young,  comparatively,  while  yet  when  his  intellec- 
tual powers  were  at  their  height. 

Still,  considering  his  life  for  thirty  years  in  Colorado,  he 
was  eighty-seven  instead  of  fifty-seven  years  of  age,  for  in 
those  thirty  years  he  lived  two  years  for  every  one. 

He  aspired  to  the  very  highest  honors  that  the  republic  can 
bestow ;  he  had  abilities  that  justified  his  ambition,  but  he, 
strong  and  controlling  as  he  was,  would  never  control  himself; 
he  watched  as  he  burned  life's  candle  at  both  ends  and  con- 
templated calmly  what  would  come  when  the  two  flames  met. 

And  still  so  winsome  was  he,  so  masterful,  so  brave,  that 
those  who  loved  him  can  not  yet  recall  him  as  he  was  in  life 
that  his  image  is  not  quickly  obscured  by  their  tears. 


A 


JOAQUIN  MILLER. 

"HEAD  of  gold,  breast  and  arms  of  silver,"  but  all  the 
rest  "potter's  clay."  A  half  savage  chained  to  a  star. 
His  soul  took  in  every  glory  of  nature ;  the  hills,  the  for- 
est, the  overhanging  dome  of  the  sky,  the  stars  above,  the  boom 
of  the  deep-sea  surges  bringing,  in  an  unknown  tongue,  mes- 
sages from  far-ofif  lands — all  these  were  delights  to  him.  The 
songs  of  birds  always  met  a  response  from  him,  but  an  Indian 
wickiup  suited  him  as  well  as  a  palace,  and  when  in  the  deep 
night  the  scream  of  a  complaining  cougar  came  to  his  ears,  he 
smiled  and  said  low  to  himself:     "We  are  in  accord." 

A  little  more,  and  he  would  have  been  out  and  out  a  naked 
savage ;  a  little  more  the  other  way  and  the  angels  in  heaven 
would  have  bent  their  ears  toward  the  earth  to  listen  to  his 
melodies.  Of  the  earth  he  was  exceedingly  earthy,  but  all  the 
time  the  incandescent  lights  of  his  soul  were  shining  through 
the  coarse  material  and  illuminating  it. 

His  courage,  moral  and  physical,  was  superb.  He  could 
look  any  danger  in  the  face  and  smile,  and  when  the  foremost 
men  and  women  of  the  land  knocked  at  his  rude  door,  he 
received  them  with  a  grace  as  free  from  affectation  as  from 
apology.  While  he  never  felt  above  the  most  lowly,  he  never 
met  a  man  whom  he  deemed  his  superior.  He  had  a  native 
savage  pride  which  an  earthcjuake  could  not  have  shaken. 

In  his  youth  he  accepted  the  sensual  side  of  life,  but  at 
night  from  his  bed  on  the  ground,  he  had  a  wireless  telegraphy 
which  brought  him  messages  from  the  stars.  He  transcribed 
some  of  these  and  their  divinity  cannot  be  cjuestioned.  Had 
his  surroundings  been  more  refined  and  had  he  learned  a  little 
discipline  in  his  youth,  who  knows  what  he  might  not  have 
achieved  ? 

He  lived  his  own  way  asking  no  odds  of  anyone,  and 
without  fear  passed  on. 


THE  OLD  COLUMN. 

AT  TIMES,  as  I  recall  some  old  names  and  the  character- 
istics of  the  men  assume  distinctive  forms  before  me,  it 
is  a  joy  to  make  a  hasty  record  of  them.  But  today 
they  come  in  companies,  come  with  the  old  elastic  steps,  the 
old  joyous  faces,  until  the  air  around  me  is  filled  with  echoes 
of  their  voices,  and  the  oldtime  joyous  laughter,  and  the  air 
is  warmer  because  of  their  smiles.  For  the  smiles  were  lighted 
from  the  fires  of  youth,  which  fires  have  perfect  combustion, 
leaving  no  dross  upon  the  earth,  making  no  taint  upon  the  air. 

Somehow,  in  life  they  seemed  to  be  borne  up  with  a  belief 
that  while  it  was  true  that  other  generations  of  men  have  lived 
out  their  span  and  gone  into  the  silence ;  it  was  going  to  be 
different  with  them;  that  they  had  found  the  long-looked- for 
Ponce  de  Leon  spring,  the  waters  of  which  were  to  restore  the 
waste  of  nature,  the  attritions  of  old  age,  the  assaults  of  dis- 
ease ;  that  each  night  was  to  bring  them  undisturbed  rest,  and 
that  each  succeeding  morning  would  find  them  perfectly  re- 
stored to  hail  the  day  as  joyously  as  the  lark  and  with  no  more 
apprehensions  of  evil. 

At  least  they  lived  that  way.  There  was  no  work  that 
could  abash  them ;  no  risk  they  were  not  ready  to  assume ;  no 
danger  that  appeared  in  their  path  that  could  daunt  them  or 
turn  them  aside,  and  when  a  call  came  upon  their  charities  the 
thought  was,  "Why  should  we  not  respond  generously,  for 
have  we  not  unabated  strength  to  create  more  ?" 

When  some  one,  overborne,  fell  out  of  the  ranks  and  grew 
still,  that  mattered  not.  The  explanation  was  that  he  always 
had  been  delicate,  or  that  he  never  had  taken  any  care  of  him- 
self, or  if  all  the  usual  explanations  failed,  it  was  said  that  "he 
was  out  of  luck,"  and  then  some  primitive  philosopher  of  the 
company  would  deliver  an  address  and  prove  to  a  demonstra- 
tion that  luck  was  a  force  in  the  world  which  could  no  more 
be  fought  back  than  measles  or  whooping-cough.  And  some 
near  friend  would  explain  that  the  ancient  belief  that  the  Fates 


358  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

watched  which  thread  of  life  to  sever  with  their  scissors  was 
true,  and  what  they  did  when  a  man  became  so  much  better 
than  his  fellows  that  their  reckless  ways  gave  him  pain,  was  to 
mercifully  bring  peace  to  him,  and  so  the  death  of  such  a  man 
was  not  an  event  to  weep  over,  but  rather  to  chant  a  farewell 
joy  strophe  above  him  to  be  a  lullaby  for  the  long  sleep. 

When  from  the  outside  world  learned  and  accomplished 
gentlemen  came  among  the  band,  and  meaning  to  be  genial  and 
pleasing  to  hosts  talked  down  to  them,  it  always  seemed  to  me 
a  pity  that  no  voice  from  the  subconscious  intellects  of  those 
guests  could  whisper  to  them  to  go  slow;  that  they  did  not 
know  their  audiences ;  for  who  among  the  learned  in  books 
and  those  who  have  worn  soft  raiment  all  their  days,  can  com- 
^jrehended  what  it  is  for  thoughtful  men  to  take  their  post- 
graduate courses  in  that  great  university,  the  faculty  of  which 
is  made  up  of  the  ocean  waves  that  break  at  the  mountains' 
feet;  the  winds  that,  coming  up  from  the  sea,  make  all  the 
mighty  pines  on  the  mountain  tops  the  harps  on  which  to  set 
their  anthems  to  music ;  the  desert  with  its  cold  and  heat,  and 
when  it  sleeps  under  its  pall  of  silence — that  dreadful  silence 
which  is  so  profound  and  all  encompassing,  as  though  all  na- 
ture had  died — that  the  nerves  of  dumb  animals  break  down 
under  it,  and  they  are  stampeded ;  when  to  those  hunger,  and 
cold  and  thirst  and  hardships  are  added  as  assistants ;  when 
these  earnest,  generous  natures  feel  the  pangs  as  one  hope  after 
another  dies  in  their  souls,  can  the  mere  book  scholar  give  such 
men  any  instruction  to  much  interest  them  ? 

When  a  great  calm  for  a  long  time  spreads  its  winding 
sheet  about  a  portion  of  the  earth,  when  the  sun  beats  down 
until  the  world  and  the  air  become  fetid ;  then  suddenly  the 
elements  arouse  themselves  and  call  up  a  cyclone  or  a  hurri- 
cane to  clear  the  air,  which  in  its  track  leaves  a  trail  covered 
with  the  wreck  of  forests  and  homes  and  sometimes  dead 
men  and  animals.  But  the  air  is  purified.  Men  who  live  close 
to  nature  take  on  some  of  its  moods. 

What  wonder,  then,  if  sometimes  sections  of  this  old  band 
would  suddenly  arouse  themselves  and  paint  things  crimson, 


THE  OLD  COLUMN.  359 

giving  up  to  excesses  and  perpetrating  episodes  not  to  be  ap- 
proved of  by  any  Sunday  School  society  in  the  world? 
It  was  a  way  they  had  to  clear  the  atmosphere. 
But  let  no  one  wonder  if  some  of  the  native  sons  of  Cali- 
fornia and  Nevada  are  a  little  spoiled.     It  was  the  old  band 
that  did  it. 

And  do  not  blame  the  old  band.  They  felt  one  hope  after 
another  die  in  their  souls,  and  bore  it  without  plaint.  They 
knew  that  their  youth  was  about  to  fall  off  the  trail  and  if  the 
knowledge  brought  any  sorrow  to  them  they  hid  it  in  their 
own  hearts ;  but  every  morning  as  they  rose  from  their  rude 
couches  they  felt  the  little  fingers  that  were  not  to  be  tugging 
at  their  garments,  and  what  wonder  that  when  they  came  upon 
children  they  spoiled  them? 

What  deeds  of  valor  they  performed !  What  noiseless 
charities  they  bestowed!  What  self-abnegation  attended  their 
lives!  What  splendid  industrial  triumphs  they  wrought  when 
they  were  obliged  to  adjust  ends  to  means,  and  from  the  im- 
possible to  wring  victory ! 

There  was  no  place  in  their  ranks  for  braggarts  or  pre- 
tenders ;  they  had  to  be  shown ;  with  a  swift  intuition  they  sep- 
arated gold  from  dross  and  the  seal  of  their  approval  was 
equivalent  to  a  certified  check. 

They  were  not  all  angels,  but  in  their  hospitality  they 
assumed  every  time  that  they  were  entertaining  angels,  and 
had  a  real  angel  come  he,  at  least,  would  have  known  that  he 
was  getting  the  best  that  his  host  could  provide. 

For  me  that  procession  began  its  march  three  score 
years  ago. 

I  watched  it  changing  year  by  year,  watched  it  as  ever 
and  oftener  one  and  another  fell  from  the  ranks,  watched  it 
until  the  radiant  column  shrunk  to  a  straggling  band,  and  of 
late  have  only  at  long  intervals  heard  a  footfall. 

But  today,  looking  down  the  long  aisles  of  memory,  the 
mists  are  all  cleared  away  from  above  the  trail,  and  that  pro- 
cession is  again  in  view — the  splendor  of  the  beginning,  the 
flags,  the  trumpets,  the  joyous  songs,  the  springy,  exultant 
steps,  their  paths  bathed  in  sunlight  and  al)la7.e  with  hope;  the 


360  AS  I  REMEMBER  THEM. 

march  through  the  hot  noonda}-,  no  wearying,  no  rest;  the. 
tlie  long  afternoon  march,  and  the  bivouac  under  the  stars — 
all  the  music  grown  still  and  the  night  wind  sweeping  up  from 
the  depths  of  the  desert  becomes  a  requiem. 

But  through  the  silence  there  come  whispers  of  a  land 
in  the  Beyond ;  another  land  of  golden  mountains,  clear 
streams,  flowers  and  sunlit  fields,  filled  with  the  love  songs 
of  bright  plumaged  birds,  wdiere  the  dawns,  the  sunsets,  and 
the  light  of  the  stars  are  all  merged  in  the  greater  splendor 
of  the  Eternal  Day. 

THE  END. 


UC  SOUTHERN  RtGIONAL  LIBRARY  FAGILITY 


AA    000  911  173    3 


